“The increased central control of education brings with it the need for a management perspective, and language of performance management — for example, levers and drivers of change, and public service agreements as a basis of funding. The consumer or client replaces the learner. The curriculum is delivered. Stakeholders shape the aims. Aims are spelt out in terms of targets. Audits measure success defined in terms of hitting targets. Cuts in resources are euphemistically called ‘efficiency gains’. Education becomes that package of activities (or inputs) largely determined by government.”

- The Nuffield Review (2009), Britain

Teachers in Singapore will be familiar with the edu-babble that is quoted above. However, how many of them realize that the schools have been run like bureaucracies rather than like educational institutions? I have mentioned in some of my posts about schools being run mainly from an administrative convenience point of view. How the teaching and learning is done is very much defined by the bureaucratic needs of the school system. Teach to the test or examinations. Why? Because the test or examinations is the simplest way of denoting how much is learned by someone. The numbers will connote progress or retardation in learning. As if the assessment of learning is such a simple thing.

Accompanying this is the rise in edu-babble as highlighted by the Nuffield Report. In Singapore schools, terms like “KPIs”, “targets”, “stakeholders”,” customers” and “bottom lines” have become common and makes the reflective teacher wonder whether he is in a school or a factory. As the edu-babble increases so does the confusion as to what education is all about. As the report further highlights:

“As the language of performance and management has advanced, so we have lost a language of education which recognises the intrinsic value of pursuing certain sorts of questions, of trying to make sense of reality, of seeking understanding, of exploring through literature and the arts what it means to be human.”

There is a loss of meaning in this transition from education to management. There is a dehumanizing effect even. Professor Richard Pring, one of those responsible for the report, said:

“We are losing the tradition of teachers being curriculum directors and developers — instead they’re curriculum deliverers. It’s almost as though they have little robots in front of them and they have to fill their minds, rather than engage with them.”

Mary Boustead, from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said:

“We call it edu-babble. It completely denudes education from being a human and social act.”

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