At Edge, we believe that a vibrant, coherent and relevant education system can enable all learners to fulfil their potential.
To do this, we collaborate closely with key national stakeholders including government, policy practitioners, teaching staff, students and external partners – and we also love learning from successful international examples to inspire innovative policy solutions back at home. By developing our policy reports, contributing to government and select committee consultations and collaborating with wider stakeholders, we look forward to continuing to shape the debate on the future of education.
Schools Education
Schools are in a unique position to shape our nation’s future leaders. We want to equip young people with the skills they will need for wider life, the workplace and for life-long learning. Rather than focusing predominantly on knowledge acquisition and high-stake exams, young people’s education should develop the whole individual and a range of skills such as team work, resilience and empathy. We need a schools education that is coherent, unified and holistic, supported by a broad and balanced curriculum.
Apprenticeships
Our apprenticeship system plays a vital part in our technical education landscape but it has the potential to become even more ambitious and relevant to the skills needed for the 21st century. We should be scaling up the things that already work well and focus on embedding higher quality and broader transferable skills so that apprentices are better prepared for their sector and the changing world of work.
Further Education
Against the backdrop of a changing economy, Brexit, and recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, it is clear that we need our Further Education (FE) sector to be at the forefront of social and economic skills development. To do this, we want to see the sector become more defined, careers and skills focused, and collaborative, with Colleges acting as anchor institutions and trusted services, working in partnership with training providers, schools and employers across their local areas.
Higher Education
The UK benefits from a world-class Higher Education (HE) sector which engages with high quality teaching, produces vital research and supports social and economic functions across the country. To maintain its reputation as a powerhouse for society and the economy, we want to see HE become more diverse, employment-focused and offer better value for money. We also urge policy makers to build on lessons of the pastand to apply these lessons to current policy-making.
Curriculum and Assessment
Our 19th century curriculum and assessment system is not fit to prepare young people for the 21st century workplace.
The content and approach of what we assess is too narrow, focusing predominantly on knowledge acquisition and written, time-bound exams rather than a wider portfolio of skills, experiences and competencies. This bleeds into our curriculum where the current emphasis on factual recall, over deep thinking, is restrictive. Teachers are spending a disproportionate amount of time preparing students for high-stakes exams and this is squeezing out time for students to develop team-working, creative problem solving and communication skills.
