Campaign for Education: The Missing Word

The Manifesto Club has launched a petition on the Downing Street website, calling for the UK government to put the word 'education' in the names of departments dealing with schools, colleges and universities. The campaign is led by the Manifesto Club member Professor Dennis Hayes:

'Every generation has a crisis of education. This usually takes the form of worries about what should be the content of education for future generations. But a unique crisis seems to have afflicted the government which has set up a Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and a Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). Spot the missing word? It’s education!

From the Victorian Board of Education to the twentieth century Ministry of Education, the word ‘education’ has always been there as an expression of a major social and political value. Even when there were qualifiers to the department titles, such as the Department of Education and Science, the Department for Education and Employment, or the Department for Education and Skills, the idea of education was not forgotten.

When Tony Blair announced that ‘education, education, education’ were New Labour’s three policies for government it was almost unimaginable that a decade later one of Gordon Brown’s first acts as the new prime minister was to do away with the term in the titles of the new departments he created. The Manifesto Club believes that this is an expression of a new crisis, not about the content of education but about whether in today’s society ‘education’ has any meaning for politicians.

Whether the removal of education was an implicit recognition of New Labour’s failure or an explicit abandonment of the aim of education, the Manifesto Club believes that having a department that unequivocally has 'education' in its title is an important measure of any civilised society. A civilised society is one that believes that future generations are capable of being educated; that they are capable of acquiring, to the fullest extent possible, human knowledge and understanding across the arts and sciences.

The Manifesto Club has set up a petition that asks the prime minister to put ‘education’ back in departmental titles. We ask all parents, students, teachers, and anyone interested in ensuring that the government does not abandon education for what increasingly looks like behaviour modification, to sign the petition:

to put the word 'education' back in the titles of the government departments dealing with schools, colleges and universities. This symbolic act will embolden parents, teachers, lecturers - and all those committed to education as the primary aim of these institutions - and ensure that education is not forgotten in favour of the teaching of skills, good behaviour or emotional well-being.'

Sign the petition on the Downing Street website.

For further details and press comment, email Dennis Hayes (mobile no: 07862712743)

For non-UK citizens: Downing Street petitions can only be signed by UK citizens. For a more international view, see further reading on the Manifesto Club's work on education, including articles by French and Spanish campaigners.