Education is not always the best answer.

There is a joke with a point about science. A man is searching under a lamp post and a passer bye stops and asks if they can be of help “What are you looking for?” The first man says “I have lost my car keys and I am looking for them.” “Oh I can help. Where did you drop them?” says the helpful passer bye. “Over there on the other side of the street, but there's no light over there!” Hopefully you get the point that science looks where it can see to find what it is looking for, which might not be where it is! Bureaucracies and assessment do the same thing.

Another parable from ancient India. Three blind men try to describe what they can feel. One says “It is alive and it is wider than I can reach round, rough to touch and immovable”. The second says “No, it is alive but its just wider than my hands and moves round and keeps touching me”. The third unlucky blind man says “ No it is smaller and swishes around and something keeps dropping on me and it is very smelly!” Perhaps I am paraphrasing for my own amusement, but the point is education and especially assessment are just descriptions of parts. Not the whole. Oh it was an Elephant if you did not guess.

In many areas of society a bureaucratic approach and solutions whether there was a problem or not have been predominant. One tool of this approach is the term 'qualified'. The legal term is something like 'appropriately qualified'. Many industries have qualification standards, with minimums and recognised levels. These are measurement based. They are things that can be measured. That is the qualifications themselves and also the assessment of the qualifications. Then there is the administration and organisation of the qualifications where again it is for convenience of application from the perspective of those above not actual quality improvements.

So how does education not work. They obviously measure some measurables, not the elements that are not measurable. It cannot teach, let alone measure the 'whole' within an educational environment. So a qualification is not a whole it is an approximation from some information gathered. That is why non university graduates are wary of the another new highly qualified boss inflicted on them. The problem is from the typically vague legal term appropriately qualified. What is that and who decides. Well ultimately it's the writers of the law and the fear of legal consequences in the non 'legally qualified'. The limits of the term and the attempted safe qualifications must be put in perspective. In sports the most common mistake many people make is selecting or supporting a manager or coach who was the best player/performer. The most successful coaches and managers are rarely the best players. They are separate exclusive tasks. They require a completely different set of skills. So is the person who is most able to pass qualifications the best at doing. No! No! No!

Are the best teachers the ones who come from wealthier families, go to the best schools and achieve the best results from the top ranked Universities? Put them in an inner city school with a bottom set and you have just given a free meal to a group of wild animals (I actually like them for some reason). Hay even better insist they have a Masters. The problem is the imposed bureaucracy from above is just completely unhelpful, inappropriate and actually damaging (ineffective for children and the staff change jobs or have strokes trying to battle through).

The interference from above was recognised by the US military after Vietnam where decisions were made by a senior officer when front line soldiers were under fire. If you think that a worker needs to get permission to put out a fire with a fire extinguisher from senior management and not just put it out. Then you are as dangerous as anything else to the worker and anyone else close.

Assessing just to assess is no help. Only teaching what can be assessed is very limiting, and assessing all of that is reducing learning and practice. If a student gets an A-level in maths then the GCSE grade is of little consequence. The longer term goal is more relevant. Not all of life can be measured or needs to be, once someone has six GCSEs and 3 A levels they do not need more GCSEs and A levels. They have proved they can pass those qualifications. A broad base of subjects is helpful but it depends on future activities (employment etc.).

In context is a key factor in real performance. The best solders are not the best shot on the range, but the best shot after walking miles and being shot at. The best sculptor is not the one who can split a rock in half. The best is the one who can chip off the right bits of rock that leaves the sculpture they want. Passing an exam is not the real world and it's before a mile run and you are not being shot at.