Social Impact of the Excellence in Cities-Aim Higher - Essay Example

Social Impact of the ‘Excellence in Cities-Aim Higher’ Initiative of the UK Government on Urban Learning Introduction In its efforts to greatly improve the education system of the country and to reform it irreversibly, the government of the United Kingdom had come up with several initiatives during the past years. One such initiative which thus far had been resulting to favourable developments is the Excellence in Cities (EiC) Initiative. For a brief background, it was in 1997 that one third of the children in UK were found to have left primary schools without having acquired the fundamentals in English and mathematics (Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005). In general, reasons for students’ problems were found to include: low attainment on admission to school, lack of parental support, lack of motivation, absenteeism, poor behaviour and high exclusion levels, high mobility among students, and numerousness of students who did not have English as their first language. On top of these, local education authorities and schools may also have problems in recruiting and retaining staff, poor quality of instruction, low level of school morale, feeble leadership, and inadequate support services (http://www.renewal.net/Documents/RNET/Overview/Education/Education.DOC). Main Excellence in Cities is a major government policy in the UK devised to improve standards in the country’s urban schools. It aspires to present various provisions in order to meet the needs of each and every child in the UK, believed to be worthy of proper and competent education. This is enveloped within a structure of collaboration and partnership among the educational institutions in the land. It is organised through Partnerships, each Partnership including a local education authority (LEA) and all its secondary schools. Each of these Partnerships is endowed with sufficient funding, the disposal of which is laid at the hands of such Partnerships (National Foundation for Educational Research, 2005). Excellence in Cities embarks upon the problems that the children in the UK city schools face. By combining promising initiatives, it intends to lift up the aspirations and achievements of students and to tackle social exclusion, hostility, absenteeism and indiscipline, thereby hoping to improve parents' confidence in urban schools. The assortments of strands to the EiC programme are as follows: Learning Support Units; Learning Mentors; City Learning Centres; EiC Action Zones; Gifted and Talented and Specialist Schools; Excellence Challenge (http://www.eichull.com/). Part of the Excellence in Cities Initiative is “Aim Higher.” It is, for the most part, concerned with aiding the Government to attain its objective that by the year 2010, 50% of UK’s young people (under the age of 30) access Higher Education. Aim Higher has four strands (http://www.eic-middlesbrough.gov.uk/excellence/). For the First Strand, Aim Higher incorporates Higher Education and Further Education or Sixth Form Colleges into the EiC Initiative, with the aim of: improving the connections between Pre-16 and Post 16 Education; building on and extending the Gifted and Talented programme to the Post 16 sector and growing the amount of students who apply to universities that demand high admission prerequisites; and increasing the number of youth crossing the threshold to Higher Education from comparatively underprivileged areas. Funding will be provided to aid them in developing further vocational courses to enable students to develop easier to advanced courses Post 16, and to prop up activities for identified students 13-16 with the goal of persuading them to regard University as a preference in the future (http://www.eic-middlesbrough.gov.uk/excellence/). The Second Strand consists of raising the funds allocated to Universities to sustain their outreach work, an example of which is Summer Schools. In Strand 3, Aim Higher makes available innovative, more comprehensible information and improved marketing in the endeavour to Higher Education. Examples of this are University tasters and the 'Aim Higher Roadshow' which was intended for Year 9 and year 12 students (http://www.eic-middlesbrough.gov.uk/excellence/). The Last Strand, which is Strand 4, features under the Aim Higher programme, a provision of additional financial assistance to support children in tough circumstances in attaining Higher Education. An Opportunity bursary is an example of this (http://www.eic-middlesbrough.gov.uk/excellence/). It is apparent that Aim Higher concentrates on increasing the numbers of students who stay on in full time education or training beyond the age of 16, and then move onto Higher Education. As such, it works in close proximity with the three post-16 colleges where it also has a remit to persist its support in the attainment of the Gifted and Talented cohort. This is done by elevating the aspiration and achievement levels of UK students ages 13-19 through enhanced links between schools, colleges and universities. (http://www.eichull.com/). An important issue that should be discussed in relation to the purposes of Government initiatives such as Excellence in Cities- Aim Higher is the low standard and underachievement of students. A large area of concern here are students who come from disadvantaged places. Those children who attend schooling at five years of age usually perform below the level of the national average. Furthermore, those kids are probable to descend to much lower levels when they proceed to the elementary level. They may also not develop as much the national average sets, mostly with regards to standards in literacy and numeracy (http://www.renewal.net/Documents/RNET/Overview/Education/Education.DOC). It will then be most probable that this trend will just recur in the early and later years of secondary education, thus leaving students unequipped to find employment in the future. Predictably, they have fewer qualifications than the national average. It is very unlikely that these students will advance to higher education or vocational training. While half of the children from middle and upper income families are able to push through to Higher Education, only 1 for every 6 kids from disadvantaged conditions does. It should also be of consideration that parents of underachieving children are less likely qualified than those of higher achieving kids. A main factor resulting to underachievement is the parents’, community’s, or teachers’ lack of expectations for students, which can translate to students’ lack of expectation for themselves. (http://www.renewal.net/Documents/RNET/Overview/Education/Education.DOC). These situations are even aggravated for some groups of students in neighbourhoods of high deprivation level. An example of this is the higher disadvantage among members of ethnic minority groups. The behaviour, turnout and accomplishment of some White and Black boys from the Caribbean are usually poorer than those from other groups since they become de-motivated and alienated from the school place. Kids from Pakistan and Bangladesh are also at risk of underachievement in primary school. Fortunately, they do well the moment they get the grip in English (http://www.renewal.net/Documents/RNET/Overview/Education/Education.DOC). Difficulty in joining the learning process in schools is observed among kids and whose parents are not well-versed in the English language. Kids who are excluded from school should also be paid special attention. While they are out of the school place, they are missing out every opportunity to learn, and therefore, gain the necessary qualifications that school can provide them. Aside from this, they are constantly and increasingly exposed to detrimental things such as drugs and other criminal activities. Another possibility is that they will be in higher risk of pregnancy, thus possibly costing the Government much through healthcare, housing and educational needs (http://www.renewal.net/Documents/RNET/Overview/Education/Education.DOC). In the face of all these present challenging circumstances, some schools are failing to provide the quality and necessary education for students. More marks of A* to C fall lower than 47.4%, which is the national average, and even 25% which is already the floor target. Same goes for GCSE 5. Probably, this is mainly contributed by the schools’ difficulties in employing parental support in the learning process of their children (http://www.renewal.net/Documents/RNET/Overview/Education/Education.DOC). Another major difficulty that schools might be facing is the complex needs of disadvantaged areas. Their plans to embark upon serious problems can be significantly hindered by difficulties in the recruitment and retention of qualified head teachers, teachers, teaching assistants and support staff. (http://www.renewal.net/Documents/RNET/Overview/Education/Education.DOC). The aforementioned difficulties significantly affect every attempt to uphold the standard of education. Responding to the needs of these disadvantaged areas will challenge local authorities to device sound corporate approach, plan and delivery of services. However, there are instances when these local authorities fail to respond such complexities. Because of this, a number of education authorities have been done away with the powers entrusted to them by the Secretary of State. Amidst these pressures, these authorities have found their way to employ the aid of private contractors to make available education services and are developing ways of working with them. However, some of these contractors also find the education standards set by contract difficult to meet. (http://www.renewal.net/Documents/RNET/Overview/Education/Education.DOC). After all of these discussions, I think that it will be sensible to agree that a number of related social, cultural, economic and educational reasons have caused the aforementioned education problems. A meagre display of strategic leadership from the local education authority (LEA) or ineffective support services may have held back some institutions that were inadequately monitored and supported. Frail head teachers and internally low quality teaching schemes are also a big problem. The specific problems of the neighbourhood may have been insufficiently allocated with the required planning and funding by local authority. Moreover, setbacks for schools such as in managing finances, outdated administrative systems, cleaning and maintaining the building, or in making associations with other public services students maybe a consequence of insubstantial services For the sector of local authorities, we could also hypothesize upon the reasons of its difficulties. The lack of capacity to deal with the extent and density of the problems that the local authorities are encountering could be the reason. It can be that some education services may be underfinanced or inadequately administered. Consequently, services given to such schools may be futile such as: personnel, financial, payroll, property; managing surplus places; or information and communication technology aid for school administration and the curriculum. Insufficiency in any of these areas can get in the way of raising the standards and motivating pupils to attain competent and Higher Education. Embarking upon the identification of the underlying causes of low school standards calls upon a partnership between the local authority and other public services, along with the private and voluntary sectors. However, these affiliations do not necessarily function productively. An instance can be the absence of cooperation among social services over kids in public care, or of health services for kids with mental health problems. At times, this is because of partners’ reluctance to pool resources to deal with specific problems. Or, it can also be that though the senior officers submit to the idea of cooperative work at a strategic level, the staff don’t fit them at an operational level. Poor administration, under-staffing or inadequate staff expertise to respond to new demands can be causal to this (http://www.renewal.net/Documents/RNET/Overview/Education/Education.DOC). As a response to the handful of quandaries already discussed above, the government extended such answerability, with literacy and numeracy after 1997. Thus far, reforms were made in primary schools as improvements in all schools were targeted. Schools deemed guilty of under-performance were challenged, while schools that were already failing with regards to the set standards were expected to pick up promptly. Grant-maintained schools were secured with their key freedoms as Foundation schools, whilst all schools were given the opportunity to have better financial independence alongside better financial delegation and new dedicated building grants which were sent straight to schools. Every school was expected to manage a fair admissions policy (Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005). As for secondary schools, the government has encouraged each of its kind to aim for specialist status, in line with the government’s vision of revitalizing comprehensive education. This particular process provides a clear manifestation that the government is laying down challenging targets for improvement and for the development of a clear mission. In addition, more flexibility was introduced in the curriculum, resulting tens of thousands of young people to go on vocational courses or attain experience in practical work (Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005). These reforms have been sustained by an unparalleled level of investment in improved teachers’ compensation; increased support staff; new computers; new facilities; and new establishments. Teachers’ compensation increased by 20% in real terms, and schools employed an additional 130,000 support staff and 32,000 teachers. Moreover, schools gained access to twice as many computers, as well as new interactive whiteboards and broadband technology, facilitating ICT to become a progressively more integral component of the teaching and learning process. Investment in school buildings has escalated seven-fold (Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005). Conclusion With real improvements made in school, real developments have followed. Through the literacy and numeracy programmes, the quality of instruction has been transformed in the government’s first term and the Key Stage 3 strategy for 11-14 year-olds in its second term. In primary schools, Ofsted reported the proportion of good or excellent teaching to have increased significantly from 45% in 1997 to 74% in 2004/05, and from 59% to 78% in secondary schools. Meanwhile, the percentage of badly-taught lessons has been halved (Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005). These reforms were legitimized by the additional 96,000 children who started secondary school already able to do basic mathematics well and 84,000 children who have been performing excellently in English. Further, 50,000 more 14 year olds reached the expected standards in English and in Mathematics after the Key Stage 3 schemes were established in 2001. (Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005). There have also been immense improvements at GCSE, with 50% more students attaining five good grades in inner London. Specialist schools and areas benefiting from Excellence in Cities and London Challenge experienced exceptionally rapid improvements in education standards. In order to aid the teachers in delivering more effective lessons and teaching assistants in offering more personal support, school workforces have been radically revolutionized. As an aggregate result, most schools and education authorities have been able to set and achieve minimum standards. From a total of 616 in 1997, there are only 131 secondary schools left today where less than a quarter of pupils gain five good GCSEs. Positively, there are more than 400 non-selective schools today where 70% or more students gain five good GCSEs, in contrast with the year 1997when there were only 83 (Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005). These facts and figures only prove to us the effectiveness of the ‘Excellence in Cities-Aim Higher’ Initiative of the UK Government on improving urban learning. Yet though these achievements are indeed significant, standards must be kept advancing to meet the challenges of the globalised world in which we now live. High standards must be must be able to encompass every child, in every school, in every community (Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005). The battle for a high education standard is far from over as attainment gap between high and low achieving schools is still too vast. Besides, children’s educational achievements are still too strongly linked to their parents’ social and economic background. This, in turn, becomes a main obstacle to social mobility. Therefore, plans must still be geared to sweepingly improve the system. This could be done by putting parents and the needs of their children at the heart of the school system, giving schools enough freedom to innovate and achieve, bringing in new vitality and new providers, and ensuring that coasting – let alone failure – is not an alternative for any school (Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005). This way, every school can be ensured to deliver excellent education, every child can be ascertained to achieve to his or her potential, and the system as a whole can be guaranteed to be progressively driven by parents and by choice (Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005). Bibliography Department for Communities and Local Development. 2006. Retrieved 10 August 2006. Excellence in Cities, Hull. 2006. Retrieved 10 August 2006. Middlesbrough EiC Partnership. 2006. Retrieved 10 August 2006 National Foundation for Educational Research. 2005. Excellence in Cities: The National Evaluation of a Policy to Raise Standards in Urban Schools 2000-2003. Queen’s Printer and Controller of HMSO. Retrieved 10 August 2006. < http://www.renewal.net/Documents/RNET/Research/Excellencecitiesnational.pdf> National Literacy Trust. 2006.Primary. Key Literacy Initiatives. Retrieved 10 August 2006. Renewal.net. 2006. Retrieved 10 August 2006. Secretary of State for Education and Skills. 2005. Higher Standards, Better Schools For All More choice for parents and pupils. Crown Copyright. Retrieved 10 August 2006. The Standards Site. 2006. Excellence in Cities. Retrieved 10 August 2006. Read More