Sir Michael Wilshaw, ofsted boss until he retires at the end of the year, sees a correlation between school failure to perform and the Brexit victory. It is for him a serious situation. Areas that have predominantly favoured Brexit, such as the north and the East Midlands for example, are experiencing difficulties with school performance. Sir Michael believes that the Brexit voters felt that their needs were ignored. What does Brexit mean for the future of Education?
Poor school performance implies that children will have less chance of a good job
There is hardly any way around it, yet the correlation with the EU is unclear. The Ofsted publishes a recent report indicating a greater need for teachers as a result of this ever-rising standards. Consequently, it is essential to see a fair distribution of teachers throughout the country to respond to the needs of pupils. For many parents, it's not about leaving the EU. It's about getting a deal for their children that will be just as good as everywhere else. One would think that staying in the EU would enable the development of a global education regulation: Get every child the best possible education across the EU.
So what pushed parents to vote Brexit?
For many the focus is not on school but on the future of their children. The argument of many parents was to stop foreign workforce from taking all the jobs. It is interesting to note that Sir Michael puts education first. He is keen to give children better education and stronger profiles as employees.
In their wish to reduce immigration and 'cheap workforce' as they call it, parents don't seem to have the best interest of their children at heart.
What does no EU mean for the future of education?
At the moment the future is bleak for universities. With 43,000 staff from EU countries working in British universities, there is no guarantee that they will be able to stay.
Worst, there is no guarantee that they will want to stay once Brexit begins. For students, this means the loss of Professors, tutors, mentors, research staff, lecturers, etc. This also means that the Erasmus exchange programme, that has enabled thousands of UK students to spend a year abroad to develop certain areas of their studies, will cease. To take things at a school level, language teachers who went to university after 1987 had a mandatory Erasmus year. Now picture your child learning a foreign language from someone who had never left the UK. Pointless? Welcome to Brexit.
Additionally, the EU will not be able to provide funding to British universities. There is currently no indication of how this will be addressed by the British authorities.
Worries about university fees are fully legitimate at this point. We can only hope that the question will receive an answer soon.
We could say that Brexiters have condemned their children to a bleak education future.
