Abstract
This publication is essentially a collection of comments on the Treaty of Lisbon whose recommendations on the European conceptualisation of education were implemented in 2009. This book challenges EU secondary education policy, and advocates a return to a knowledge-based rather than skill-based curriculum as a unifying force for the 27 member states with their 40 official languages. The contributors have extensive experience of EU education policy and provide a predominantly, but not exclusively, British perspective which does not hesitate to be critical of practices in Britain (e.g. the teaching of foreign languages) as well as policy emanating from Brussels. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 (Chapters 1–4) looks outside the school system and discusses access to, and the transmission of, European heritage. Part 2 (Chapters 5–9) focuses on citizenship education and language learning, while Part 3 (Chapters 10–12) discusses European Schools and the European Baccalaureate.
The Introduction and Chapter 1, ‘Putting Europe into education’, make a case for the teaching of European heritage in secondary schools rather than offering an education which prioritises the teaching of skills for a more globally, economically competitive Europe. The authors lament what they see as the sacrifice of education ‘as a good in its own right’ (p. 4) for an education which is too vocationally-oriented and which should be tempered with effective language learning, citizenship, the classics, literature and shared values. Frank Furedi of the University of Kent argues, in Chapter 1, that there is a reluctance to learn from history. As an example, reference is made to the European Parliament’s ‘House of European History’ project which will provide in Brussels a space for visitors to learn about the history of European integration in the 20th century. The Year Zero for this history has been designated as 1946. This shows, we are told, a reluctance by schools and politicians to look into the uncomfortable past of the two World Wars, a neglect of important historical knowledge. We read in Chapter 1 that EU policy makers have lost sight of the meaning of education, which should be acquainting children with ‘their cultural and intellectual inheritance’ (p. 18) with knowledge about a European, humanitarian vision and not just skills for the future. Furedi advocates, in Chapter 1, the teaching of the classics (Greek and Latin) because there is much to be learnt from the past. He then goes on to say that ‘education is not reducible to ideas that are directly relevant to a pupil’ (p. 16) and that relevance equates to philistinism (p. 19). Some may be alarmed at these statements, but they need to be seen in the context of Furedi’s plea for a return to a more formal, classical education recognising the origins of European heritage. And language teaching does not escape his critical comment when he regrets that the ‘teaching of grammar is replaced by the celebration of street language’ (p. 20). For Furedi, formal schooling provides important ‘context-independent or theoretical knowledge’ (p. 17) which, as a finite phase of young people’s lives, goes against the grain of contemporary lifelong education where formal and informal education blend in.
Chapter 2 by John Sayer, the chief editor of this book, provides a useful overview of the plethora of acronyms, and useful information, relating to EC/EU action programmes in education: Eurydice, PETRA, NARIC, Eurotechnet, Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo II (from 2000), Arion, Socrates, IRIS, COMETT, ERASMUS, ERASMUS Mundus from 2004 (cooperation with non-European countries) and so on. This chapter also contains the eight key competences for education in Europe, some of which miss the point according to Furedi:
- Communication in the mother tongue
- Communication in other language
- Mathematical competence and basic competence in science and technology
- Digital competence
- Learning to learn
- Social and civic competences
- Initiative and entrepreneurship
- Cultural awareness and expression. (p. 40)
An extension of the concept of subsidiarity emerges in Note 2 at the bottom of page 44. It is not just a question of the member states being subsidiary to the greater entity of Europe, but the concept keeps moving down from nation, to province, to town, to family and finally to the individual as being subsidiary to the well-being of the majority. The point is reinforced on pages 6 and 7 with a pertinent quote from Montesquieu.
Policies developed by the Council of Europe and the European Union to promote citizenship, human rights and languages are discussed in Chapter 3, in particular the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950, derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The importance is stressed of schools reflecting these policies as they teach them. Chapter 4 looks at school links across national cultures and how they can also provide motivation for learning languages. The 1992 Treaty of Maastricht is regarded as ‘a landmark in the history of Community cooperation in the field of education’ (p. 72). We come across the cumbersome European acronym CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) which, simply put, means teaching subjects in other languages – this is fundamental for bilingual education.
Part 2 of this book contains some interesting case studies of citizenship education and language learning, such as the nationally-televised Euroquiz in Scotland (Chapter 5), sponsored by a private investment company, on European geography, culture, history, languages and EU affairs. Primary-6 pupils aged 9–10 years in more than 400 schools take part and the finals take place in the Scottish Parliament. Models of bilingual schooling are discussed in Chapter 8 such as Wix Primary School, London, where the bilingual French/English pupils took French and English national assessment tests and performed as well as or better than a similar, average grade group in France or England. Another chapter discusses the case of British teachers working abroad as language assistants. This facilitates linguistic and cultural links and produces teachers with confident language knowledge.
In Chapter 6, on the teaching of European citizenship through modern foreign languages, the advantages of constructivist versus didactic teaching are discussed together with the point that language learning is inextricably linked with culture. In response to a survey, secondary language teachers generally thought their subject should promote the target language’s culture rather than teach political and legal European citizenship as such. They also made the point that students do not have sufficient language knowledge to discuss such concepts. Chapter 9, on teacher education for bilingual education, is informative and very helpful. Reference is made to the Council of Europe’s European Centre for Modern Languages in Graz, Austria. This centre does pioneering work in language teaching, learning and training in cooperation with partner organisations in EU countries. It is responsible for the European Framework of Reference for Languages which provides EU threshold levels for language learning; its website is a veritable ‘Aladdin’s cave’ of ideas for language teachers and trainers.
In Part 3 (Chapters 10–12), readers will find many interesting facts and proposals for the future concerning the European Schools (ESs) and European Baccalaureate (EB). The first ES started in 1953 as an experiment in Luxembourg, and became the first official ES in 1957. There are now 14 schools in seven countries offering the EB. The ES system has a Board of Governors of Ministers of Education and/or of Foreign Affairs of the 27 member states. However, the system had become ‘isolated from the rest of the educational world’ (p. 176). In 2005, the ES system Board of Governors created a new model for expansion by making the EB available to national state and private schools in member states through an accreditation procedure renewed every 3 years following an inspection audit. The Scuola per l’Europa in Parma (Italy) was the pioneer new model school and is still the only one to offer the EB because it has Secondary Years 6 and 7: these years require strict conformity to the curricula of ES for delivery of the EB. Conformity with ES curricula is less strict for the preceding years. There are thus three types of ESs. Type 1 schools are the original schools prior to the expansion of 2005. Type 2 schools require the presence of a European agency in the territory of the school; management and funding are the responsibility of the authorities in that country. There are seven Type 2 schools in Italy, Ireland, Finland, France (Strasbourg and Manosque), Greece and The Netherlands (The Hague). Type 3 schools are in a pilot stage with one school in Germany from September 2012. These schools are not required to be located near to an EU agency and are self-funding.
Chapter 11 is about the future recognition and reform of the EB which was offered for the first time in 1959. An audit of the EB in 2009 by Cambridge International Examinations has led to reflection about its reform. Annex 1 on pages 185 and 186 summarises the ‘content’ of ES curricula. Readers will find interesting detail in Chapter 11 about the EB and its examinations (at least 60% is required in order to pass, assessment is based on 40% coursework and 60% final examinations (36% written and 24% oral), the Examining Board is chaired by a university professor with examiners from all European countries), Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) tariff equivalents and so on. We find on two pages of this chapter the only reference to the International Baccalaureate (IB). The IB has a number of similarities with the EB. There could be mutually helpful exchanges between the two systems relating to the accreditation of Types 2 and 3 European Schools, recognition, teacher training, curriculum content and programme profiles. One of the main differences is that the European Schools have the rather ponderous bureaucracy of the EU to contend with, whereas the IB is a private not-for-profit, independent organisation whose status enables it to move more nimbly. The 2009 Chair of the EB Examining Board, Mats Ekholm, professor of education in Sweden, wrote a report in the same year which contained a number of observations. He found that the eight EU competencies were hardly touched upon by EB syllabi and examinations; there was a lack of attention to digital competence and to learning how to learn. He recommended ‘trusting European Schools to conduct the EB with only sample random controls’ (p. 195) and proposed the exploration of EB vocational options.
Chapter 12 provides a case study of the only European School in the United Kingdom, founded in 1978 at Culham, Oxfordshire, which will be phased out as an European School by 2017. In this chapter are recounted the trials and tribulations of the school seeking a different status in order to continue its existence. A well-constructed concluding chapter reminds the reader of the main messages, with suggestions for future schooling in Europe. Each chapter has a content outline which is very helpful. The Figure 2 Annex of European events does not include the date of the first European School nor the first European Baccalaureate examination but is otherwise a very helpful document. The Introduction to this book refers to a number of UK initiatives of European education (p. 8), citing the Anglo-European School at Ingatestone and Hockerill Anglo-European College at Bishop’s Stortford. Both are, incidentally, IB Diploma schools, but there is no further mention throughout this book of why they might be considered to be good initiatives. I had expected they would appear as case studies.
This book is full of information about the EU and Council of Europe policies on education. It challenges those policies and provides recommendations for improvement and reflection. The introduction and first chapter are particularly provocative, with a call to return to a more classical knowledge-based education so as not to be lured into competencies and lifelong learning strategies which have as their objectives economic supremacy rather than the human heritage of Europe.