Business and innovation

Take a minute to imagine the education system as one big business. It shouldn’t be too difficult, I mean at the end of the day it has a lot of similarities to a business. It has a product (teaching), which it delivers to its clients (students). It has the same sort of staff hierarchy, it has its sets of rules and its policies and it has a reputation, which can be considered proportional to its success. There are however the differences; no foreign call centers, no company cars and definitely no multi-million pound/dollar bonuses (or is that just banks that get those…).

But I suppose the biggest difference of all is the fact that because of the way the education system works it just wouldn’t survive in the cut throat world of business when put up against the likes of Google, Sony or Apple. Why? Well, the main reason is innovation. Companies thrive on innovation, it’s what makes or breaks them. Unless you innovate in business you get left behind, and are overtaken by your competitors. This is something that the education system just isn’t used to, and because of this it’s been stuck in an endless loop for decades. Granted, there are glimmers of hope here and there, when the government tries to mix things up a bit, but there are never any notable changes.

It’s just a shame there isn’t a structure in place where schools are in a way made to innovate, as if they were a business and as if they had competitors to try and stay ahead of. It’s a shame because it’s only once a structure like this is in place that our schools governing bodies will even begin to think about stepping outside the box, and consider letting our teachers improvise rather than supervise. I guess this is where my comparison between the education system and a business really rings true, because these governing bodies I speak of are no different to CEO’s and Presidents of global companies. They only care about the facts and the figures that - every year - equate to better results. Results that they can boast to shareholders about… or in this case, tax payers. They won’t deviate from a system that is getting them the kind of results they can put in headlines and say “look, the number of people passing English is up by whatever percent”, so they need something else to make them change things, and properly for once. We need to put something in place that gives them the statistics they so desperately crave, but actually helps the students learn skills that will be useful in todays society, not last centuries.

So here’s my idea; I think we should put in place some sort of scheme, where a districts funding (or part of a districts funding) for education is dependent on how well they can innovate, and introduce new things to the classroom. Not only this but they should have to dedicate a reasonable amount of time to preparing our young students for life outside of school. Money should be taken away for turning that bit in to any kind of formal lectures or talks, and money should again be awarded for creativity. I also think that districts should be allowed to keep any money they save by switching to open source software, or by moving things like student planners online. I do however think, that one of the main points on the list should be making sure our students feel like they are a part of something, and actually making them a part of something. While all this is happening though the districts need to keep a good level of achievement with exams etc to thus satisfy the statistic lovers. Feel free to object, and make suggestions but I believe this to be a good compromise, and a good method for not only opening up our education system and modernizing it, but allowing it to continue along a similar vein to which our Governments wish to keep it.

We need to understand that our schools have been safe, and stable with the current structure for decades upon decades. What I’m worried about now is how much longer the structure will hold? Do we stand by, watching and waiting till the global education crisis creeps up? Where what teachers are told to teach becomes irrelevant, and our text books simply aren’t fact anymore. Where exam results mean nothing in a world where free thinking and true learning outweighs the ability to regurgitate information. Our Governments need to prepare for this, and stop relying on a system derived at a time when people didn’t even know what electricity was. We need innovation in education.

The Bass Player

Photo 1. by what what on flickr

Photo 2. by Rob Shenk on flickr