Alan Milburn is right to warn that an “exam-obsessed” school system is failing to prepare young people for adult life (‘Exam-obsessed’ schools leave pupils unready for work, Alan Milburn says, 20 April). The pendulum has swung too far from personal development towards a narrow fixation on measurable attainment. A broad educational purpose has been reduced to the accumulation of grades. This is not a failure of schools, but the product of an accountability system that overvalues what is easily measured. Attainment data is prioritised, while resilience, communication, collaboration and character are sidelined.
The result is a generation leaving education well qualified on paper but less able to apply those qualifications beyond school. This reflects decades of policymaking that has undervalued personal development, including the steady erosion of arts subjects that foster creativity and confidence. Young people have far more to offer than their exam certificates; policymakers’ fixation with the easily measurable is constraining schools from developing the interpersonal skills that matter most in an increasingly complex world.
Pete Crockett
Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire
