What is education actually for?

Yesterday was A-level results day.

For hundreds of thousands of young people it will have been a day of celebration, relief, disappointment, uncertainty and probably exhaustion. Their results are the culmination of lots of hard work matters, and it is great to celebrate the achievement of completing such a significant season of life.

But there is an important question I found myself asking on results day.

What are we actually educating young people for?

There has been a welcome shift in the political debate away from assuming that university is automatically the right destination for everyone. The Government is putting greater emphasis on apprenticeships and technical education and on giving young people different routes into employment.[1]

That is a good thing.

But listen to some of the language we increasingly use about education and another assumption quickly becomes apparent. We talk about skills shortages, employability, successful careers, earnings and providing the workforce our economy needs.

All of those things matter. Of course, education should equip people to work. A good job brings dignity, purpose and the means to support ourselves and those we love.

But is getting a good job really an adequate answer to the question what is education for?

I should declare something of an interest here.

I grew up in what would now be described as an economically disadvantaged area. Amongst my friends there was plenty of aspiration, but sometimes less information about the range of opportunities that might be available to people with different interests and academic abilities.

I was enormously fortunate. I did well in my A-levels and ended up studying economics at a very good university in London. But I was the only one in my school year to leave Wales.

My experience was also very different financially from that facing students today. There were no tuition fees. My local authority provided me with a modest grant and I received a scholarship. Working during the holidays and living relatively modestly meant that I left university without debt. So it would be hypocritical for me to argue that university doesn't matter. It changed my life, and I never want to see that pathway for people from similar backgrounds to myself being closed or made more difficult. There are more than enough barriers for some young people already.

But interestingly, much of what changed my life cannot be captured in a calculation of the financial return on investment to my degree.

Coming to London exposed me to people from backgrounds very different from my own and to ideas, experiences and opportunities I would otherwise probably never have encountered. And during those years I found a church community in London in which my Christian faith and understanding grew enormously.

That wasn't on my economics degree syllabus. But it was part of my education in the much bigger sense of becoming the person I was going to be.

Which is why I worry when education becomes understood primarily as a transaction: work hard, get qualifications, acquire skills, get a better-paid job.

There is something true in that chain. But there is also something rather thin and reductionist about it.

One reason I have valued serving as a trustee of Emmanuel Schools Foundation over the last two years is its deliberately more rounded understanding of education. Its schools have an explicitly Christian ethos while serving their local communities inclusively. Academic excellence and high expectations matter enormously, but alongside them is an explicit concern for character and virtue.

Mark Pike, ESF's Chief Executive and a professor of education, has written extensively about the importance of holding together academic attainment, character formation and social mobility rather than forcing us to choose between them.

I think that is closer to a Christian understanding of education.

The Bible values knowledge and learning, but repeatedly points us towards something deeper: wisdom.

One translation of Proverbs 9:10 says “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” In other words, wisdom is not simply knowing more.

Of course education should impart knowledge and develop skills. But wisdom asks an additional question: what should I do with what I know and what I am able to do?

Our faith should reshape our understanding of potential beyond the world’s understanding of it.

We should help young people discover how they have been wonderfully made with their unique mix of interests, gifts, abilities and passions. We should encourage them to develop those things, sometimes far beyond what they imagined possible.

But the Christian vision of human flourishing cannot end with maximising individual potential. We aren't isolated individuals whose purpose is to extract the greatest possible benefit from life. We are made for relationship and community. Our gifts are not only for us.

Our faith pushes the question further and asks how can I use what I have been given to love God and serve my neighbour?

This is a consistent theme the Bible returns to again and again in its teaching, perhaps most succinctly summarised in Mark 12:31 when Jesus tells his followers to “love your neighbour as yourself.” Similarly, Paul writes in Philippians 2:4 that we should “not (be) looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

I saw something of this very vividly in a completely different context when I was leading the children's charity Spurgeons.

For many years Spurgeons had supported a school in Nairobi called Spurgeons Academy. I had the privilege of visiting it and meeting the headteacher, staff and, most memorably, some of the students.

The young people I met were bright and ambitious. They talked about wanting to go to university and enter particular professions. But what struck me was the way they talked about why. Almost without exception, they didn't describe education simply as a means of escaping the disadvantaged community in which they had grown up. They wanted to succeed so that they could give something back to it. They wanted the qualifications and positions that would enable them to use their professional lives to help strengthen the communities that had raised them.

I'm sure some of that reflected the wider culture in which they were growing up. But I also sensed something of the Christian culture of the school. Their gifts were not understood simply as assets for personal advancement. They were gifts to be developed and then used.

Their example made a deep impression in me, and I think reveals an important part of how we should view education.

A good education should help a young person discover not only what they are capable of becoming, but what their abilities might be for.

And perhaps Christians need to be rather more courageous about where that principle leads us.

It is easy to say that examination results do not define a young person's value. Most Christian parents I know would readily agree. And yet do our expectations, actions and decisions always communicate the same thing?

In more affluent communities it can still be almost assumed that successful children will go to university and then enter one of the professions. We may be delighted if our son or daughter becomes a doctor, solicitor, teacher, accountant or senior manager. And those are absolutely wonderful things to aspire for. But what if the gifts God has given a child point somewhere else? Would we be equally delighted if an academically-able child discovered that they were gifted practically and wanted to become an electrician, carpenter, engineer, chef, car mechanic or plumber? (All professions I have paid a lot of money to over the last year!) Would we regard an excellent apprenticeship with the same pride as a place at a prestigious university?

I wonder whether Christian families sometimes need to challenge not only society's definition of success, but our own too. If we really believe that different gifts come from God, then faithfulness cannot simply mean using those gifts to enter the highest-status profession available to us.

There is dignity in good work. And perhaps one quiet form of Christian witness is raising children who are less concerned about whether their career impresses their parents' friends and more concerned about whether they are using their gifts well, serving others and doing work of value.

That matters particularly on results day.

Yesterday some young people opened their results and discovered that they had exceeded everything they hoped for. Others will feel today that they have failed, and however often adults tell them that “results aren't everything”, a grade can feel remarkably like a judgement. 34 years ago what was on a sheet of paper that my headmaster gave meant everything, and it felt like it would define my future as well as how I felt about myself.

Christianity says “no they do not!”

The very first chapter of the Bible tells us “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) Our worth begins there, and an A* cannot add to someone's fundamental value and a disappointing grade cannot diminish it.

That is not an argument for pretending results don't matter. They do. Results can open doors and, sometimes painfully, close them. Academic achievement should be celebrated and schools should have high expectations of every child, particularly those whose circumstances might otherwise constrain their opportunities. But there is a world of difference between saying “this result matters” and saying “this result tells me what you are worth.”

Luke gives us a wonderfully brief description of Jesus growing up that it can be easy to skim past: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” (Luke 2:52)

Wisdom, physical growth, relationship with God, and relationships with other people.

It is a strikingly rounded picture of development, maturity and education in the fullest sense, and perhaps our understanding of education needs to recover some of that breadth.

We need excellent scientists, engineers, economists, teachers, builders, carers, artists, doctors, entrepreneurs, electricians and plumbers. We need universities, apprenticeships and excellent technical education. And we need young people equipped to earn a living and contribute to a productive economy.

And we also need people of courage and compassion. People who can exercise judgement. People capable of friendship and service. People who know that having the ability to do something doesn't necessarily mean it should be done. I want to live in a society where people recognise obligations beyond themselves. In other words, a good society is on where the large majority of citizens value wisdom and character as well as qualifications.

So perhaps, once the excitement and disappointment of results day has subsided, there are some bigger questions worth asking our young people, and if you are a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin godparent or just an adult speaking to a young person in your church this weekend, you could begin a wider conversation than just asking about their results, and ask, what are you good at? What do you care about? What opportunities would you love to have and what are the barriers to realising them?

And for those close to you, what sort of person are you becoming? And how might what you have been given be used for the good of others?

The answer may involve university. It may involve an apprenticeship, technical education or going straight into work. There doesn't need to be one ‘good’ route for all, because whichever route we take, education should surely be about more than preparing us to make a living. It should also help prepare us to live well.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/number-of-t-level-pupils-hits-record-high-as-maths-a-levels-rise?utm_source=chatgpt.com