Susan Bassnett: Pupils now know less and are more stressed

This autumn, for the first time in 30 years, I don't have a child in school. My eldest started school in September 1977 and my youngest left last July. I have had 30 unbroken years of speech days, sports days, school plays, Christmas carol services, parents' nights and chats with teachers. I have met dozens of parents, and made some lasting friendships. Above all, I have witnessed schools change.

I have also had 30 years as an academic, which gives me a fair insight into the UK education system from primary school through to PhD. Knowing what was going on in schools has always helped me to understand university students better, for there is precious little joined-up thinking between primary, secondary and tertiary education. Nothing has changed here.

The big question, of course, is whether standards have risen or whether education has been dumbed down. My view is that neither question reflects the changing reality of UK education over the last three decades. Pupils are taught a broader curriculum, they are taught presentational skills that my generation envies, they are computer-literate and can study in teams. But they do not have the basic framework of knowledge that many academics see as fundamental to university work.

In my subject areas, literature and languages, fewer books are read, there has been a decline in the study of grammar and written-language skills and, perhaps most important, chronology in history and literature has disappeared. I have watched the GCSE and A-level syllabuses become progressively easier as my four children have gone through the system.

The written and oral skills required to pass French and German GCSE by children one and two were vastly superior to those required by children three and four. There is no doubt that here the curriculum has been dumbed down pretty considerably.

Nevertheless, the stress levels they have encountered, and the time and energy they have put into their work, have grown no less, and probably even increased. Pupils have to struggle harder now, over-tested as they are, and it is more difficult for them to sort out what knowledge they need to acquire as so much comes at them in disconnected gobbets.

All my teacher friends complain about the amount they have to do outside their subject knowledge. Over the years, the role of schools in the mind of government has changed: where once schools were centres of learning, now they are expected to fill social and parental roles, too. The impossibility of this task is apparent to everyone except those taking the decisions: as a school governor I also see the problems of parental disengagement and the resulting clash between families and teachers.

But parents are in a tricky position these days. Probably the biggest single change I have seen over 30 years is the way in which schools have gradually excluded parents, despite all the rhetoric about greater parental involvement. I know less now about what goes on in schools, about the criteria for marking and assessment, about the structure of the curriculum, than at any point in the past. School reports have become bland to the point of meaninglessness. Small wonder, when teachers are required to produce so much pointless paperwork.

Nor do I feel as comfortable going into a school these days. Security risks mean that they have buzzers and locked doors and identity cards and CCTV. At a time when the call is for widening access to encourage disadvantaged children to improve their performance, school premises appear more remote and inaccessible than at any time I can remember.

The culture of excessive examining and over-inspection that has come in since 1977 is damaging to children's education. Once a child is programmed to think that passing a test is what matters, that child is likely to turn up at university refusing to study anything not strictly on the examination syllabus.

More broadly, the excessive testing is tied into a league table culture that also damages UK education. By setting schools against one another, parent confidence and teacher morale drop, and pupils are confused. If we want a genuinely equitable system, we should start to trust teachers, schools and communities more. The lack of trust is the single most depressing change that I have seen.

Better or worse? Different, certainly. The system has degenerated under education ministers of both parties. I hope, as my grandson enters the education mill, that the period of over-inspection, over-examining and daft, spur-of-the-moment initiatives, along with the lack of joined-up thinking and zero consultation is coming to an end. But I am not holding my breath.

The writer is pro vice-chancellor of the University of Warwick