Leading article: Why targets may not work

Is setting targets the way to improve things? The Government certainly thinks so. It has been setting targets all over the place, not least in education. Primary schools and secondary schools are groaning under the weight of targets – from the numbers succeeding in SATS tests to numbers passing GCSEs. Now – since last week – we have a whole new raft of targets for further education.

Is setting targets the way to improve things? The Government certainly thinks so. It has been setting targets all over the place, not least in education. Primary schools and secondary schools are groaning under the weight of targets – from the numbers succeeding in SATS tests to numbers passing GCSEs. Now – since last week – we have a whole new raft of targets for further education.

We sympathise with Estelle Morris's dilemma. How do you ensure that further education colleges deliver? There is concern that the sector has lost its way. The technical colleges of old had a clear mission that local people understood. They were there to provide vocational education locally. Now no one knows what their role is. Moreover, as the Education Secretary points out, some of their work is poor, much of it mediocre.

But the problem with targets is that they have unintended consequences. Giving each college a target for the number of students it should recruit as well as a target for pass rates on courses is micro-management by Whitehall on a grand scale. Recruitment targets will force the colleges into chasing student numbers rather than responding to local need. What will happen to the freedom that colleges have now to test things out – to lay on English for Kosovan refugees or A-levels for twenty-somethings who need to catch up? Will they still run such programmes with the targets?

The pressure on colleges to conform to the new get-tough regime will be intense. Money will flow from it. And, as we know, money is in short supply in FE. That has not helped it to raise its game. Low pay levels are one result. How can good lecturers be attracted if they are paid worse than school teachers? It might be better to fund the colleges better than squeeze them into a straitjacket.