NLT policy

Rising to the Literacy Challenge – The Labour Party Conference

30 Sep 2010

On 28 September 2010 the National Literacy Trust held a fringe debate at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester. We would like to thank Starbucks for their kind support and the panel members for their time and invaluable contributions.

The panel consisted of:

Lyn Brown MP, Member of Parliament for West Ham

Lord Jim Knight, Former Minister of State for Schools

Kevin Courtney, Deputy Secretary General of the National Union of Teachers

Opening comments

The panel used their opening comments to reflect on the record of the Labour party while in power, as well as to reflect on the opportunities and challenges ahead, including where they will place pressure on the coalition government.

All three speakers began by talking about the vital importance of literacy. Lyn Brown encapsulated this when she said that “universal literacy sits at the heart of a full society. It is the heart of everything”. Both Jim Knight and Kevin Courtney agreed with the sentiment that literacy is wider than just schools, libraries and adult skills courses: it is an issue that affects every area of an individual’s life and rising to the literacy challenge requires the success of a range of formal and informal services. Each speaker focused on a different service and its role in helping literacy.

Libraries

Lyn Brown MP focused on the vital role of public libraries and the need to protect them during the spending review and beyond. Describing them as “providing access to another world”, Ms Brown praised the unique ability of libraries to be relevant to old and young alike. She continued to say that for some libraries provide a sense of community and the ability to alleviate loneliness, for others they help solve skills problems, particularly those who feel uncomfortable in formal education settings.

The MP for West Ham went on to say that recognising the role libraries play in helping with a wide range of problems, including some “soft” outcomes was a great success of the Labour government, and something she feared could be lost under the coalition Government. Ms Brown argued that the Labour government had focused on outcomes, rather than outputs, something which had benefitted the library sector.

To illustrate this point Ms Brown used the example of a library service in London which brought Playstations into the library to encourage more teenagers to use the service. Making the libraries more attractive to teens raised participation in book lending and use of the library among this audience. However, the local paper ran a negative news story focusing on computer games being inappropriate for libraries. Ms Brown spoke of her fear that the attitude shown by the local paper will be reflected in the policy of the new government and that this will stifle innovative thinking.

National Government

Lord Knight’s speech focused on the role of National Government in supporting literacy, and specifically on the track record of the Labour government between 1997 and 2010. Continuing the theme of libraries Lord Knight spoke about his pride in being part of the National Year of Reading in 2008, which saw 2m new people join their public library. This went “beyond the wildest dreams” of central Government and was the ideal manifestation of the “Big Society” idea the coalition government is now attempting to establish.

Moving from libraries into schools Lord Knight criticised the current Schools Minister for his focus on synthetic phonics, saying that phonics is already being taught in schools and the important factor is not which kind of phonics is being taught, but that the phonics tuition is consistent and systematic.

A focus on phonics also risks taking the fun out of schooling and placing students in “a straight jacket”, something Lord Knight admitted the Labour government was guilty of doing. He continued by saying the previous administration had “driven the system too hard” and had taken some of the fun out of schooling both for students and teachers, before telling the audience that if he had his time again as Minister of State for Schools he would be more wary of this, and would place a greater emphasis on allowing teachers and students to express themselves and enjoy their schooling.

While conceding that it is difficult to think of policy solutions to make literacy more attractive, both in schools and among adults, Lord Knight was adamant that ensuring the creating a demand for literacy services among those with low literacy, who are currently the least likely to consider literacy important, is key to rising to the literacy challenge.

The curriculum

Kevin Courtney focused his opening comments on literacy in the classroom, both professionally as a representative of a leading teaching union and personally as the husband of a teacher at an inner London school.

While acknowledging the National Union of Teacher’s reputation as a challenging union for the Labour party, Mr Courtney began by praising parts of the previous government’s approach to education. In particular the first five years of the National Literacy Strategy, which saw literacy rates in primary schools rise dramatically, and the introduction of the Reading Recovery scheme. However, in an echo of Lord Knight’s admission, Mr Courtney went on to say the trouble with the National Strategies was that they were too narrow: “the strategies created lots of children who could read but didn’t want to”. Referencing research such as the OECD report from 2006[1], Mr Courtney talked about the importance of reading for pleasure on literacy standards, and went on to express concern that the coalition government’s focus on only one method of teaching reading will do nothing to reverse the trend of children who can read, but choose not to.

Conclusion

Focusing on the above areas the discussion was able to take in a range of different factors and networks affecting literacy in the UK, although with limited time the discussion had to be cut short and many important pieces had to be discussed in smaller groups afterwards.

Despite the relatively short time the comments of all three speakers and the expert questioning from the audience led created an illuminating discussion both on ways the nation can rise to the literacy challenge, but also mistakes the previous government made. The National Literacy Trust would like to thank again thank Starbucks and the panel members, as well as thanking the attendees for making the discussion so interesting. 

[1] OECD (2006), Progress in International Reading Literacy Survey (PIRLS)

Tags: Early years sector, England, Libraries, Northern Ireland, Policy, Schools & teaching, Scotland, Social inclusion, The home, Wales

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