Education: learning from other areas.

At the turn of 1900 a class was a teacher in front of rows of children sat down 'listening'. But 116 years later now we have a teacher in front of rows of children sat down 'listening'. How many other areas have progressed so far? I want to look at some areas that have transformed over less time to have massive performance outcomes where ideas and principles can be applied to education. Necessity is the mother of invention and there needs to be drivers to change to better performance. The UK system has little competition within it, membership (as a school or employee) of the industry is governed hierarchically, but with other groups pulling in different directions.

The main areas I will mention are competitive areas where to exist you have to change to the real world, settling for the status quo or some faith based fantasy leads to extinction or at least poverty. Compromise has to be very controlled and minimum. They are focused on specific aims and goals, they can see clearly success and failure. With competition if you do not. Someone else will! Economics gives a lot of information for all on what works and what does not and answers a lot of questions (whether asked or not) about what is happening in education.

The first area is business. Here profit is a clear aim, some succeed and some fail. For now I am talking about this part. What leads to success?

Clarity of vision, knowing your goal is essential, trying to do too many things fails. The talk is of unique selling points (USP), and niches. Benchmarking performance and comparing to competitors (this does happen in education; examinations and PISA for example, but they are insufficient). Management and leadership operate towards choosing goals and working towards them. An important input into business came from economics via Japan after the Second World War. Quality management (and TQM, JIT, Kaizen etc.) led to processes and procedures that had massive impact and it has to be said success. 'The economic miracle' was often the label applied. Important concepts particularly applied to manufacturing included continuous improvement, not the box ticking checklists. Quality control using statistics and teamwork (quality circles). The aim in manufacturing was constant improvements so that the product was continuously improved, and the manufacturing process became quicker and cheaper with higher quality products. Recognising who had the knowledge; the person doing the job everyday! Not imposed by the highly paid ignorant.…! From manufacturing the classic example of success and failure is General Motors versus Toyota. How one stopped and the other became the biggest car manufacture in the world (a telling portrayal was on this American Life #561) the story includes many people committing corporate suicide, and those with knowledge helpless to stop it. Many common aspects of General Motors are present in the education system today.

The service industry has also used the same practices and also has had set standards of what the customer expects. Looking at education as more of a service industry is helpful. Still improvements in process and management can be used from manufacturing, but a clear element of service is serving the customer. Giving them what they want and will pay for. Organisations that do not serve the customer are replaced by ones that do. This is a lesson education must be wary of, as the true customers are the child and parents. Just like a left wing politician who will send their children to a private school, or a specific school rather than their claimed political favorites locally. Parents and children will walk. It is less common for those without a politician’s salary because of the lack of alternatives (the politicians legislated against such things so far). Education cannot deliver what people do not need or want using the tax payers money for their own purposes, while preventing (and attacking) any competition.

Another area that has massive consequences with being uncompetitive is the military. Over the last few years they have become much more professional, doing a lot with less. Historically a major factor in the Royal Navy's supremacy was promotion on merit. Nelson went from cabin boy to Admiral. The high quality performance of people and technology prevents problems through deterrence and deals with problems when they arise. Their training is also very high quality often taking those who failed in education and developing them into high level professionals. Another aspect is they train with an idea in mind of crawl, walk, run to build up performance getting things right and then adding pressure. And they definitely have standards, many learned (and re-learned) over many years of action. Some standards appear strange until you know why they are absolutely needed. Hygiene was a big killer of soldiers, and dress codes are a sign of attention to detail. Although these today might not be as vital in the heat of action but what they teach are most definitely important including being as prepared as possible for all eventualities.

These areas are not identical to education but show some necessary concerns and examples for education improvement. Necessity to improve needs to be built either through competition or some other way. Naming and shaming usually identifies schools that are in poorer areas rather than lack of work or progress.