Making Education Inclusive

Separate and Unequal - Are the pioneers being punished?

The internet is so accepted as an integral part of our daily life that it’s hard to remember a time when we didn’t look on line for information and use a variety of services to help us in so many ways: checking our bank statements; comparing prices; assessing what illness our symptoms may be the cause of; so the internet rules with confidence, that is until you come to education. Secondary school education, in particular.

On line high schools are an established feature of education in the United States and other industrialised countries - arguably the long standing Australian School of the Air has been a form of distance learning for many generations. Such on line schools would appear to sit comfortably beside physical schools and provide a full curriculum of education in core subjects for those children in remote areas; who are chronically ill; who have severe anxiety and for whatever reason have failed to thrive in regular schools.  Not so in Britain, where programmes by online providers are viewed with suspicion and where efforts to gain equal access for examinations are blocked at every turn.

On line schools in Britain deliver the curriculum with the aid of modern software which allows staff and students to interact with each other and to sit GCSEs and A levels, as private candidates in the areas where they live. Often such schools teach overseas pupils who want to benefit from the Key Stage 3, 4 and 5 education system though they are not located in this country. The online teaching provided is not considered as a school according to some Exam Boards who refuse to accredit these institutions. With this refusal comes a denial of access to schemes of work and to material designed to help students - in brief- discrimination against pupils who are not seen as conforming by attending physical school.  This is a strange attitude to adopt when many higher educational establishments are delivering courses on line, think of the Open University, an institution with impeccable credentials.

Such refusals by the exam boards to give on line students access, goes against their published policies of quality and inclusion; Cambridge International Examination states in its specification documents that: “Cambridge International Examinations has taken great care in the preparation of this syllabus and assessment materials to avoid bias of any kind. To comply with the UK Equality Act (2010), Cambridge has designed this qualification with the aim of avoiding direct and indirect discrimination”

An AQA subject website declares: “We speak to teachers every day, from every type of school, and are proud of the support we give schools”

Cambridge International again: “The standard assessment arrangements may present unnecessary barriers for candidates with disabilities or learning difficulties. Arrangements can be put in place for these candidates to enable them to access the assessments and receive recognition of their attainment.”

Laudable policies; such a pity they don’t extend to online schools and their students.

Frustrated Head of Curriculum and Learning