Pupils equal more than results

Education is no different from any other walk of life in this respect. The world of education is often characterised as one of never-ending change. Change, it seems, is the only constant, and a favourite staffroom game is to list the initiatives of the past 30 years or so, and ask if they have brought improvement.

In the 1960s The Primary Memorandum brought us child-centred education (and Piaget), comprehensive education, and a spate of new school buildings. The 70s brought the raising of the school-leaving age, standard grades, and new promotion structures.

In the 80s, the belt disappeared, 5-14 was born, attention was turned to the Higher examinations. In the 90s the pace quickened, and Higher Still emerged. Along the way, there was devolved school management (DSM) staff development and appraisal, school development planning, the publication of examination results, national testing, performance indicators . . . the list seems endless.

But there is a paradox here, too. If someone who attended school in Scotland before the war were to enter one of our modern buildings she would have no difficulty recognising the activities which go on there. There are still desks, with the teachers at the front; there's a board; and in most cases the teacher talks and the children, dressed in uniform, listen. There are differences; more small group learning; more technology; some subjects with new names; no belt. But they are, unquestionably, schools.

That so little has really changed is testimony to the Scottish psyche, a need to preserve the best of the old while integrating the best of the new. And so the secondary pupil who makes a coat hook or a trowel in technological studies will also be surfing the net and may be composing music using an electronic piano linked to a computer.

But the pre-war pupil on her visit to a late-90s school would, if she could stay long enough, see important changes - the fruits of which we must nourish in the face of an inexorable pressure on schools to label children by some vague notion of ''ability''. Over the Christmas break I spoke to the mother of a friend who reminded me, with regret, that in the 1930s it was possible to be denied access to secondary education because of lack of money - to buy uniforms, books, transport etc. How many ''mute, inglorious Miltons'' went out to work in shops or factories when they might have been doctors, engineers or even writers? A generation later, when secondary education became everyone's right, selection ensured that a similar wastage of talent occurred. The junior secondary may have been tolerable in times of full employment, but the success of the Open University and Further Education in giving

adults a second chance, exposes the extent of the potential that selection failed to unlock.

OF COURSE, the comprehensive ideal was that every child would have equality of opportunity, irrespective of prior attainment, poverty, or other social disadvantages. It is every child's birthright to have their potential as learners fulfilled and, if there are barriers, then we need to remove them. Over the past 18 months this process has begun. Early Intervention schemes are helping pre-school and early primary children and their families to build their self-esteem, to raise their aspirations, and to be better disposed to learning.

New Community Schools will focus on ensuring collaboration among all of the agencies which impact on the lives of families - housing, health, the law, social services, education, voluntary agencies - particularly but not exclusively in areas of social disadvantage. At the same time, new approaches to learning and teaching will be introduced which build on what we now know from research on the human brain. If, as industry tells us, they need people who are problem solvers, team workers, independent thinkers, and self-motivators, then we should be ensuring that education provides opportunities for all young people to develop these skills.

But the 1930s pupil also knows that we need young people with compassion, integrity, concern for others, trust, and fairness. We need citizens who can take their place in a mature democracy. Social exclusion, within a town or city, in a country or internationally, has no place in the 21st century. Thus, as we look back and admire the comprehensive ideal, we need to ask ourselves if our present narrow fixation on examination results, testing, labelling, and school ''effectiveness'' is what will realise this ideal. Setting targets for school improvement must be a good thing in principle, but does it make sense for the targets to be set in Edinburgh for every school in Scotland, and why are the targets concerned only with examination results? In the past, the Tory Government attempted to exploit parent power to justify such measures, but surely we must realise by now that parents are more sophisticated

than that, and place as much emphasis on the ethos of the school than the percentage of pupils gaining credit and standard grade or level-E in 5-14. It's not an either-or; both are important, and, therefore, both should feature in any serious attempt to ''measure'' any school. Pupils are much more than the sum of their examination results.

We need to tap into the potential of all of the population, have faith in the potential of human beings to learn, and to use their learning in the interests of others. In that way, social exclusion and improved achievement can be tackled at the same time, and education can become lifelong because learning for its own sake is seen as worthwhile.

n Dr Boyd is Director of Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching, Strathclyde University.