200 Years of Education

In about a week's time, I'll be giving a talk on 200 years of local education. I've only been around for about a fifth of those years; so... what should I say and how should I say it?

I think that I've actually lived through one of the two great phases of local education, though. The first great phase was from about 1880 to 1920, when the missions and clans started sprouting the schools which are still the mainstay of local education. The second one is the modern era, perhaps beginning with 1987 and the idea that you could create quasi-independent schools.

Somehow, I shall have to convey a lot of peculiar ideas to the largely expatriate group I'll be talking to. They're very dedicated people who want to know about the history of local education so that they can tell others about it in great detail.

One of those ideas is that quasi-independent school (QIS) idea. How can you finance a school, lay down limits on its governance and its general direction, and then say the school is independent? Yet, somehow, these QIS-lings produce a range of responses from 'I am a national flagship' to 'I am a frigate' to 'I am a pirate king'.

It is a lot like how Britain gained an empire — by accident and deceit, coupled with the intrepid doings of some very dedicated men. It is a lot like Japan too, thumbing its nose at the Great Powers and relentlessly industrialising while they continue to denigrate the idea of a smaller power growing great.

And yet, the story lacks cohesion simply because the architecture is fantastic but the plumbing leaks. How to convey all that? It is a mystery to me, but let's hope it will no longer be a mystery in a very short while.