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Higher English Activities Test - Task 1

Task 1

Why should soldiers be fast-tracked into teaching? 

Archie Bland argues that the education minister's proposal is insulting to children and 
demonstrates a profoundly anti-intellectual contempt for the teaching profession.

In its wisdom, the Government has decided to give members of the Armed Forces a fast 
track route into teaching. The plan, long in the making, will give former troops the chance to 
teach even if they don’t hold a university degree, and I'm all for it, but I don’t think the 
Government is going far enough. Yes, we need a military ethos in our schools. But what 
about our hospitals? 

Think about it. Schools will benefit from the military values of leadership, discipline, 
motivation and teamwork, as David Laws and Michael Gove have argued, but you know 
where else those values would be useful? The chaotic world of hospitals! OK, so not all 
soldiers have an education in medicine. But they have the right values. And the right values 
are much more important than the right qualifications. 

The image of infantrymen moving from the military’s theatres of operations to the hospitals’ 
operating theatres is not the only one available to demonstrate how absurd this proposal is, 
how insulting to teachers and children, and how profoundly anti intellectual, with its 
contempt for the idea that knowing about things might be a necessary prerequisite for 
teaching them. And these other modest proposals make still clearer the rationale for the 
Government’s pursuit of this particular wheeze. Imagine, for instance, that teachers were to 
be fast-tracked into combat units because of their capacities to work hard, manage people 
and deal with stressful situations. Or try to picture charity workers getting teaching jobs 
without a degree because a philanthropic ethos might be just as worth instilling in our 
children as a military one. Any such suggestion would be greeted, rightly, with puzzlement. 

And yet with the military it’s different. This plan is based on an American example – with the 
difference that in America, 99 per cent of participants already had a degree – and in recent 
years we’ve been edging closer to the American model of unthinking glorification of our 
Armed Forces. When soldiers and sailors behave well, their exploits are used as evidence 
of military nobility. When they behave badly, they are seen as bad apples, and we rarely 
ask whether their wrongdoing might in fact be the product of a poisoned culture. 

I suppose this squeamishness is understandable: ever since the invasion of Afghanistan, 
we’ve been engaged in brutal conflicts that cost most of us very little and a few of us a great 
deal. We owe those few. But squeamishness, and a heavy debt, are not a sensible basis 
for policy making. So, although it feels frankly treacherous to say so, here goes: a military 
culture is appropriate for the front line, but not for the classroom, where independent 
thinking should be considered essential. Soldiers might be brave, and well-disciplined, but if 
they aren’t well qualified that probably won’t be enough to make them good educators. 
Teachers are doing something really difficult. And children? Children are not the enemy. 

The Independent on Sunday, 9th June 2013