Turn schools into "talent factories"

Schools must become "talent factories" if Britain is to compete successfully in the new world market, a leading academic warned today (March 4). Dylan Wiliam, Deputy Director of the Institute of Education London will tell a conference organised by The Spectator magazine: "It is not enough to identify talent in our schools any more; we have to create it."

Although children have become brighter and teachers better, "the changes in the world of work have been even more extraordinary," he said. "Over the last 10 years, the UK economy has shed 400 no-qualification jobs every single day."

The situation was like "walking up a down escalator," he said. "If we cannot increase the rate at which our schools are improving, then, quite simply, we will go backwards.

"In the past, we have treated schools as talent refineries. The job of schools was to identify talent, and let it rise to the top. The demand for skill and talent was sufficiently modest that it did not matter that potentially able individuals were ignored. The demand for talent and skill is now so great, however, that schools have to be talent incubators, and even talent factories. It is not enough to identify talent in our schools any more; we have to create it."

Successive governments had striven to raise standards through countless policy initiatives, but "the depressing reality is that the net effect of the vast majority of these measures on student achievement has been close to, if not actually, zero," Professor Wiliam said.

Overwhelmingly, the evidence shows that "the only thing that really matters is the quality of the teacher". In the classrooms of the best teachers, children learn in six months what students taught by an average teacher take a year to learn.

Professor Wiliam demonstrated that raising the threshold for entry into the profession would not be enough. Over 30 years, this would increase teacher quality by just 20% of the gap between teacher quality in Finland (the highest-rated country) and in the UK. This would result in one extra student per class passing an exam every three years.

"Our future economic prosperity therefore requires that as well as improving the quality of entrants to the teaching profession, we have to make the teachers we have better." This required time and support to help change practice.

"The problem is that our schools are inundated with initiatives, and too many schools try to embrace them all." When there is clear evidence about what works, it is "self-indulgent" to try everything.

"When resources are limited (as they always are) then whether something is good is irrelevant. What matters is whether there is something better that could be done with the same resources."