Philip Pullman Criticises England’s ‘Monstrous’ Education System

Author Philip Pullman, best known for the His Dark Materials novels, has strongly criticised England’s education system and the government’s “complete fetish” for exam results. The 71-year-old writer stated he believes that the strong focus on tests will “ruin children’s lives.”

As The Guardian reports, in an interview with the Press Association, Pullman said the people in charge of education today “seem to think the function of a book … is to provide exercises for grammar and it’s not, of course. The function of a book or a poem or a story is to delight, to enchant, to beguile.”

As a former teacher himself, Pullman stated that while school children do need to be tested, the emphasis on the tests has become overbearing. “To make [exams] a complete fetish and to make the very existence of the school depend on success in the league tables is just monstrous,” he said.

In the UK, children must sit a number of tests known as ‘Sats’. These exams have been criticised in the past both by writers and teachers. Pullman said he thinks children should learn to read for pleasure.

“The government or whoever is in charge of education has got it badly wrong. They seem to be doing their best to ruin children’s lives. We hear of the desperate straits that some children get into now, older children who are facing GCSEs and A-levels and so on. It’s entirely unnecessary … There’s no need for it whatsoever. It’s damaging, it’s destructive, it’s entirely counter-productive.”

He went on to praise individual teachers “who are doing wonderful things, who understand the true purpose of education, which is to help us find instruction and delight and interest in everything that exists.”

Pullman made it clear that “to drill the interest out of everything in education by making children pass tests, it’s as if you want to destroy their childhood”. In reference to Thomas Gradgrind, the school superintendent in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, who champions teaching “facts, facts, facts!”, Pullman said this approach is a “recipe for the destruction of the soul.”

Pullman is the president of the Society of Authors, and was one of many children’s writers to call for Sats to be scrapped and for “the present system of primary assessment to be reviewed and for the welfare and learning of children to be placed at the heart of whatever arrangements replace it.” Children’s authors also warned that the current method by which children are taught writing and grammar can risk “alienating, confusing and demoralising children with restrictions on language just at the time when they need to be excited by the possibilities.”

The Department for Education spokeswoman responded: “We want to unlock the world of reading for pupils so that every child can not only read and write to a high standard, but can also develop a love for reading that will last until adulthood.

“That is why improving literacy is at the heart of this government’s drive to improve standards in our schools, and assessments do play an important role in making sure children are taught well.”