Liberating Learning: secondary education under the spotlight

In Liberating Learning: Widening Participation , a new book co-edited by Professor Michael Worton (UCL Vice-Provost, Academic & International) and launched yesterday, historian Niall Ferguson, philosopher AC Grayling, Marks & Spencer Chairman Sir Stuart Rose, Young Enterprise Chief Executive John May and others examine initiatives that are successfully raising aspirations and participation in learning. Their essays make the case that secondary education in the UK has been impoverished by a narrow curriculum and rigid bureaucratic assessment, and that, despite government attempts to widen participation in post-16 education, the social gap in education remains wide. The volume, co-edited by Patrick Derham, Headmaster of Rugby School, has garnered praise from Andrew Roberts of the Financial Times , who predicted that it ?will set the education debate alight in a manner reminiscent of The Black Papers, a series of polemical pamphlets on progressive education first published in 1969 by a group of notable contributors including Kingsley Amis. Indeed..it could become a bible for reformers, those fed up with the past 13 years of missed opportunities. Professor Worton carried out a review of modern foreign languages provision in higher education in England for the Higher Education Funding Council in 2009, and is Higher Education Advisor to the British Council. He stated in his own contribution to the volume: ?There has been a tremendous expansion in university engagement with schools in recent years, and the relationships and projects that develop are strong and successful.