Memorandum submitted by Regent College
1. SUMMARY
This paper makes the following key points:
— Post-16 education in England lacks
unifying values (p 2).
— Citizenship education post-16 is
uneven and ad-hoc (p 3).
— Citizenship education should be at
the centre of post-16 education and training (p 3).
— There are probably enough government
and international initiatives and guidelines in this area (p 4).
— What is needed is to combine these
initiatives into a coherent strategy with some additional resources
(p 5).
2. REGENT COLLEGE
2.1 Regent College is a highly diverse and
inclusive city-centre sixth form college serving the city of Leicester.
We have around 1,000 full time equivalent students, mostly aged
16-19 studying courses at all levels from Entry to Advanced. Our
success rates are at or above most benchmarks, our university
progression rate is high and our AS and A level value added is
outstanding; in the top 10% of sixth form colleges nationally.
The college is increasingly popular with local school leavers
from across the city and 16-19 numbers have grown by 28% in four
years.
2.2 Around 80% of our students are of black
and ethnic minority heritage, including a number of new arrivals
(EU citizens of Somali heritage, refugees and asylum seekers).
Our students speak over 30 different languages, 60% claim education
maintenance allowance and 61% come from widening participation
neighbourhoods (the 12th highest WP factor of any sixth form college
and the highest outside London, Birmingham or Manchester).
2.3 Regent has been part of the LSDA Post-16
Citizenship project from the start and is now a Citizenship champion
college. The college's values include a commitment to "education
of the whole person for personal and social development, independence,
self-confidence, self-expression and democratic citizenship".
The college is a very diverse learning community in terms of ethnicity,
culture, language, religion, national origins and previous achievement
and the college values and celebrates this. We actively educate
about diversity and encourage students to understand and engage
with others and engage critically with local and global concerns.
The college has a good record of encouraging democratic involvement
of students in college life and participation in local and global
campaigns and we work with a number of organisations and communities
to enhance students' understanding of the world they live in.
The college promotes international links, exchanges, projects
and conferences; most recently with the Home Office, the British
Council and the Department for International Development.
3. POST-16 EDUCATION
IN ENGLAND
LACKS UNIFYING
VALUES
3.1 The 16-19 curriculum in England lacks
a coherent core or explicit unifying principles beyond the achievement
of qualifications and progression to employment or higher education.
For many students this stage of education can be a fragmentary
and uncoordinated experience which contains much that is good
but fails to build fully on their interests or to hang together
meaningfully for them. Efforts to help the curriculum "gel"
using tutorial and key skills are often regarded as marginal by
students.
4. CITIZENSHIP
EDUCATION POST-16
IS UNEVEN
AND AD
-HOC
4.1 There is no statutory requirement and
little incentive for providers to develop citizenship programmes.
These are highly dependent on the enthusiasm or commitment of
particular individuals or teams within colleges or schools. The
national post-16 citizenship pilots led by the Learning and Skills
Development Agency (LSDA) have led to a number of different voluntaristic
approaches to post-16 citizenship education. However, as yet there
is no statutory requirement of the sort in force pre-16.
5. CITIZENSHIP
EDUCATION SHOULD
BE AT
THE CENTRE
OF POST-16
EDUCATION AND
TRAINING
5.1 Whatever else they may achieve or aspire
to, all our students are citizens and one of our key aims must
be to help them to develop the skills and potential which will
allow them to be active, effective and fulfilled as such together
with an adequate knowledge base about local and global issues
to build on.
5.2 We believe that citizenship in its broadest
sense as defined by the 16-19 Crick report and building on Key
Stage 4 of the National Curriculum, can provide a unifying theme
giving purpose and shape to the 14-19 curriculum within the context
of students' own interests, their previous learning and their
potential for lifelong learning. Citizenship can be an organising
principle for a curriculum which helps young people learn about
interdependence, their developing relationship with others beyond
their immediate friends and family, their wider social roles and
the possibilities of wider collective action at both local and
global levels. By 16, most young people are ready to engage critically
in this way and are both idealistic and practical enough to conceive
that they could contribute to real change for the better. They
are also developing and negotiating a more complex sense of identity
and this raises new opportunities for reflection, critical dialogue,
research and therefore learning.
5.3 With the introduction of the new general
and specialist diploma lines over the next few years it will be
particularly important for students on all programmes to develop
a common set of personal and learning skills and to give all programmes
a strong social purpose and common core—giving young people's
programmes a wider meaning which goes beyond simply providing
the credentials for progression to Higher Education or employment
in a particular sector.
6. THERE ARE
PROBABLY ENOUGH
GOVERNMENT AND
INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES
AND GUIDELINES
IN THIS
AREA
6.1 Sir Bernard Crick's report on Post-16
Citizenship education outlined a very helpful framework for a
citizenship curriculum. One of the themes of Every Child Matters
is "making a positive contribution" which maps closely
onto citizenship pre-and post-16. Community Cohesion initiatives
in many cities in the UK usually emphasise the need for young
people to be involved in diversity awareness, cross-cultural and
interfaith dialogue and activity and to have a stake in the development
of their neighbourhoods.
6.2 The Government paper Putting the
World into World Class Education advocates "instilling
a global dimension into the learning experience of all young people"
and covers very similar ground. Youth Matters and the expansion
in youth volunteering proposed by the Government should lead to
many new opportunities for learning through active citizenship,
both locally based and, for some, internationally.
6.3 QCA's work on the characteristics of
a future curriculum suggests that amongst other things it should
"contribute to social justice and be futures-orientated and
deal with the big issues in young people's lives". The proposed
QCA 11-19 Skills framework which will replace the Wider
Key Skills and includes Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills
(PLATS) includes skills of "active investigators, creative
contributors, reflective learners, confident collaborators and
practical self-managers"—all of which can be developed
through a structured programme of citizenship activities. The
proposed Extended Project may be accredited via the PLATS
and could be the product of student-led research or activity which
relates to local or global issues which concern them.
6.4 In terms of wider thinking about a curriculum
for the 21st century, the RSA Opening Minds project proposes
a competence based approach which includes competences for citizenship
and internationally the Council of Europe has developed much good
practice at the European level through its Education for Democratic
Citizenship initiative. UNESCO's Delors commission's four
pillars of learning includes "learning to live together"
and other UNESCO initiatives eg: Education for Sustainable Development
relate closely to this.
7. WHAT IS
NEEDED IS
TO COMBINE
THESE INITIATIVES
INTO A
COHERENT STRATEGY
WITH SOME
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
7.1 These initiatives and guidelines can
be knitted into a coherent core curriculum for 16-19 education
which is sufficiently flexible and could be modularised (using
the QCA framework for achievement) to meet the needs of this age
group. We believe that this should be a priority if we want to
build on young people's entitlement to good citizenship education
pre-16 with appropriate provision post-16. This will require some
high profile demonstration projects or pilots and some investment
beyond the small sums currently available via the LSDA project.
7.2 One example of such a project is Regent
College's proposed Leicester Global Citizens' College which is
a partnership proposal with Leicester University's Centre for
Citizenship Studies in Education. This will bring many potential
benefits for learners in Leicester and beyond. Successful achievement
of key elements of the college programme will qualify young people
for membership of a Leicester Academy of Global Citizens which
will be steered by its members.
7.3 The key objective is to create a vibrant
centre for global citizenship education in Leicester to develop
transferable good practice. The aim of the college will be to
promote global and social awareness, democratic practice and community
cohesion through intercultural, interfaith, peace, development
and humanities education as well as to develop young people's
leadership, teamwork, communication, research, problem solving
and conflict resolution skills. We will build on existing programmes
to develop a coherent and progressive set of opportunities appropriate
to the various needs and interests of students and we will recognise
their achievements via a framework of college-defined awards using
existing accreditation where possible.
7.4 The College will offer a menu of activities
which will develop and accredit young people's knowledge and skills.
These are grouped into three categories each of which has a different
emphasis. Successful achievement in all three areas of the college
programme will be recognised as a college Global Citizens' Diploma.
A. Knowledge, opinion, dialogue and debate
— Active participation in the College
lecture and discussion programme.
B. Independent research, evaluation and presentation
— Extended project on a chosen topic.
C. Interpersonal and group skills, democratic
participation
— Volunteering, community, representational,
advocacy or campaigning activity.
— Internship in a voluntary, community,
governmental, legal human rights or campaigning organisation.
— Peer mentoring/mediation.
— Sports leadership, group participation
or event organisation.
7.5 The College will have a strong commitment
to equality, human rights, peace, pluralism and the possibility
and benefits of democratic collective action to bring about change.
Students would be encouraged to be questioning and critical in
their approach, to appreciate global, local and individual perspectives
and to examine all points of view; in short to be informed, skilled
and active cosmopolitan global citizens.
7.6 This is a new kind of initiative based
on a broad concept of the role a college and its students can
play in the local and wider community. Our mission is "Creating
the future: raising achievement" and this proposal flows
directly from our commitment to the highest educational standards
as well as inclusiveness and relevance. This is an approach to
curriculum design which starts from a wider social purpose before
defining accredited outcomes. We believe that if we can educate
for mutual respect, dialogue, creativity, democracy and participation
we can help to equip young people with the skills to tackle the
problems we face—from the local to the global. We believe
this is the best kind of investment any society can make in the
future.
March 2006
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