Purpose Union: The Education Debate

“This house believes that business should play a significant role in influencing school curriculums”

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Thursday 5th March saw x+why play host to an evening of thought-provoking, controversial, inspiring and surprisingly humorous debate between some of education’s foremost leaders and disruptors. A timely topic, given that our education system and curriculum are currently experiencing a particularly intense period of both criticism and change.

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The debate was moderated by Lewis Lu, CEO of Purpose Union and former director at Fair Education Alliance. After contending with housekeeping such as gently reminding the audience not to attribute certain views to specific individuals, a vote was opened up to the floor, with a majority win ‘for’ the motion that business should play a significant role in influencing school curriculums. Perhaps being a room full of London’s finest entrepreneurs had something to do with this.

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The first speaker to present their case in reassuring the audience that they had made the right decision was Kenza Wilks. Kenza is an AIG Scholar at King’s College London, and former World Schools’ Debating Champion. In 2016 he founded ‘Code Blue: WSBC’, a consultancy providing world-class debate coaching to students in London and Bermuda.

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Kenza began by referencing the show ‘Are You Smarter Than a 10th Grader’. It’s no secret that most adults forget the majority of what they learn at school, mostly because so much of the content later reveals itself to be fairly irrelevant in day to day life. Whilst the audience pondered the last time they used Pythagoras’ Theorem to assist with their tax returns, questions around the exact purpose of education, and how the system is currently meeting them wafted into the fore.

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One of the proposed benefits of having Business intervene in a system with such theoretical affinity and practical poverty, is the value provided by an environment that allows students to learn in real-time, using real-world situations. Business could better allow young minds to engage with added vocational courses, scholarships, internships and apprenticeships, which would demonstrate the varied applications of their knowledge using less sterile examples.  

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The main purpose of education, it was argued, should be utility in day to day life, as well as the accumulation of transferrable skills - something that the current system, in its primary focus on league tables and exam results, struggles to contend with.

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On top of this is the debt incurred by a lengthy education that then falls short of the skills and experience employers need, as well as the need for a more relatable curriculum to improve current drop-out rates, diversity and post-graduate opportunities. The point of information that children are not developmentally equipped to deal with such a structure, was rather abruptly thrown out, with Kenza adamant that our youth are more than capable of taking advantage of relevant content that is able to move with the times.

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Kenza’s nemesis and next in the firing line was Professor Mick Waters, the ex-director of curriculum at the British Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). His role was to give children a meaningful foundation of education, specifically to provide them with knowledge that will give them help in later life, and not just generic academic knowledge for the sake of it. This obligatory curriculum would prepare them for the future. In September 2010, he described the English, Welsh and Northern Irish exams system (GCSE) as ‘diseased and almost corrupt’ in the book Reinventing Schools, Reforming Teaching.

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Mick’s two-pronged approach centred around the purpose of education in improving a country’s economy, whilst protecting children from exploitation by business. He argued that business has long had a poor track record with schooling, and that far from being a potential saviour, is already complicit and embedded in the current problem. It was proposed that we live in a system built on failure, where well roundedness is only enjoyed by the successful minority, while the lowest 30% will eternally be confined to being a ‘burden’.

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Along with most other industries, business has in the past, demonstrated that it can be unethical, ruthless, incompetent and driven only by profit. It was stated that business already takes advantage where it can, in the way of supply teachers, academies or school meals for example, that have had no impact except to maximise financial return. Business has ‘long danced to the tune of Ofsted and league tables, creating nothing but puppets in the system of the managerial world’. Along with Faith groups, business may be permitted a place at the table, in order to be heard, but there ultimately needs to be a diverse consensus, to avoid too much power falling into the hands of vested interest.

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Next up was Jen Lexmond, founder and CEO at Easy Peasy – a home for playful parents to discover, create, play, and share learning games with their children to help them develop the skills they need to succeed at school and life. After graduating with a first class degree in PPE, she started out her career at Think Tank Demos, studying social mobility and child development. Jen continues to work with parliamentary groups and commissions to provide evidence to help shape government policy.

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One of the main issues cited by Jen was the increasing inability of employers to fill roles, due to a lack of real-world skills amongst graduates. According to the stats, the biggest gap is in the soft skills, with candidates unable to effectively demonstrate things like  initiative, adaptability or collaboration.

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It was argued that education does not create a learning experience that caters to fostering and developing such skillsets, which often require more project-based learning. As a result, graduates are not as employable, and default on student loans, creating a void in the budget that negates any beneficial economic impact the system set out to generate.

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This was contested by Carl Gombrich, the Academic Lead at London Interdisciplinary School (LIS). LIS is a new London university, preparing students to tackle some of the most complex problems that we face in the world. Adept at translating the languages that the universe speaks, Carl boasts degrees spanning Maths, Physics and Philosophy, and both researches and writes about many themes related to contemporary interdisciplinary education, he future of work, and the history of education.

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Carl brought our attention to the comparison between the success of both business and universities, as measured by longevity, with the remnants of the 16th century limited to around 62 universities and the Catholic Church. The argument being that only the strong survive, and whilst we change our smart phones faster than COVID-19 loo roll leaves a supermarket aisle, the invention of the wheel isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

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In what way could longevity equate to success? By giving the central pillar the stability to look both backwards and forwards. The problem with many businesses, is that they are constrained by ‘short-termism’, fuelled by shareholders, cash flow and fads. We learn slowly, and mostly in relationship to other people, making universities the most stable basis to foster long term views and creativity.

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Samantha Butters, CEO at the Fair Education Alliance, took the lead on the subsequent rebuttal. She stated that between the opposition, with their points around the archaic nature of the education system and its outdated curriculum, they had made half the argument for her.

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Attempts at intervention have not historically succeeded. Businesses are clamouring at the door to improve the education system, but are frequently met with a firmly bolstered hatch. And in relation to the purpose of education being to prevent the exploitation of children by business: having a strong career is part of a happy, grounded life, yet it is important to understand the environment we are in, in order to protect ourselves. In sheltering children from the world in a bubble of academia and education, we are failing to offer them the tools they need to protect themselves from this very manipulation.

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Samantha highlighted that the motion is not about businesses taking over education, but about having ‘significant influence’. Arguing that there is no better way to execute project-based learning and provide continuity along the learning journey. ‘Successful businesses have to think long term, if they were only concerned with quarterly reports, they would fail hard and fast. However, a long term view alone does not entail total remit’.

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The final speaker of the evening was Oli De Botton, Founder and Head Teacher at School 21, a pioneering new 4 to 18 school in Stratford, East London. Oli has also worked as a government education advisor in the UK and around the world, specialising in teacher development and curriculum.

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Oli cited that the aseptic business language of c-suite programmes is a demonstration of the fact that business has nothing to say about developing our children, and that this process happens through the subjects themselves, which engage and challenge them to combine fields and think critically. Should the questions perhaps be, ‘what can schools teach the world of business?’, and ‘how should we learn?’ rather than ‘what should we learn?’

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As the evening came to a close, a final vote was taken from the audience, with the majority having been swayed in the opposing direction in the aftermath of the night. It seems that even in a room full of purpose-driven enterprise, there would be concerns around incentives, corruption, short-sightedness and skillset redundancy on a larger scale. Although, many of these could arguably be more easily avoided through business than a stiflingly rigid education system, as Kenza touched on in his closing piece.

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It is certainly a complex topic and one that goes far beyond the scope of an informal evening. However, it made for stimulating insight and although few of us feel qualified, or well-enough equipped with the relevant skillsets to solve the problem, it was perhaps a step in the right direction.

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