Why are education stakeholders are playing a knock up instead of a match?
As some of you know, I enjoy a good game of tennis. I love it so much that when I arrived at the IPPN conference this week, I didn’t realise they had a tennis court and instantly regretted not bringing my racquet. I would have gladly swapped the bar for the court. I love it.
There is great pleasure in a serve that swerves by your opponent. A lob hitting the baseline or a deceptive drop shot, leaving the other person on the side flat-footed is great! If you’ve held a racquet and hit that perfect smash after a long rally, you’ll understand why you can’t help but clench your fist and punch the air. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been playing or what level you’re at, anyone who plays and enjoys tennis can empathise.
While you can sometimes rely on your opponent to make unforced errors, as you get better and go up the levels, you have to take control of a game. You need to have some sort of killer blow, an unexpected trick up your sleeve, or a way to ground down your opponent.
However, before you play against your opponent, you need to have a knock up with that person on the other side. This is the time before the game where you hit the ball back and forth to your opponent. At my level at least, its purpose is to help each warm up before the game. Both of us know what to do. For about 10–15 minutes, we hit the ball to each other’s forehand, then backhand, then we hit a few balls at the net, give and take a few lobs and finally we serve to each other. At all times, it’s predictable, I know where the ball is going to land. We don’t go hard on each other because the aim is to save that for the actual game. Even when we’re practicing serving, we don’t go full force. One might try out an unexpected manoeuvre but, all in all, it’s predictable, safe and nobody wins or loses.
Unfortunately, it’s a good metaphor for my experience in recent years when it comes to listening to the Department for Education’s relationship with the education stakeholders. Take the recent IPPN conference, for example. With all respect to the speakers involved, it never got going.
Both the Department of Education’s spokespeople and the IPPN members politely batted the ball to each other — welcoming initiatives which weren’t worth welcoming — my favourite being the one where the Department gave a few hundred euro to schools to administer a free book scheme that has almost no educational benefit. I was hoping that instead of welcoming it, they’d play a nice slice down the middle and lambast the stupid scheme for what it was.
Of course there were moments. There was a nice backhand about the ICT grant but it wasn’t followed up with a smash. Then there was a long rally about governance but the audience were more focused on other things.
However, it would be unfair to focus on this match in isolation. Every battle between the Department of Education and the representative bodies follows the same pattern.
The first one is generally after the Department of Education make a number of decisions, usually around budget time. It also sometimes happens when the Department give something to schools, for example, a partial restoration of salary or posts of responsibility. It generally goes something like this:
The representative body begins by welcoming whatever it is the Department have given, no matter how small and no matter how short it falls. They then praise themselves for: (a) lobbying for whatever the award is even if they had nothing to do with it (e.g. the recent reaction to the Department of Education giving administrative status to Special School Deputy Principals); (b) they will reiterate that they are indeed the official representative body of whoever they are representing; (c) they will give a nice easy backhanded remark on how it isn’t enough before (d) saying how they look forward to continuing the discussion with the Department of Education. It’s a predictable rally.
The second knock up generally occurs when the Department of Education make a cut to something. The rally gets a little more interesting if nobody is expecting the cut. In this situation, the Department of Education has been a bit over-zealous in the knock up; they’ve hit the ball a little wider than the representative bodies expected. In some ways, the Department has to expect that the knock up might intensify a notch, and here’s generally what happens:
The representative body expresses shock or dismay or extreme disappointment or regret or anger. Next, they’ll complain that the Department didn’t tell them they were going to make the cut. Remember —the representative bodies somehow think that this is a partnership so anything outside of the knock up is seen as an affront to that. With that in mind they generally will hit the ball back to the Department with a touch more force — not so much as to stop the knock up but enough to let the Department know that they’re there. This usually comes in the form of a couple of lines about how they aren’t happy with the decision and how it will affect their members. They will, of course, at this stage have reminded everyone that they are the official representative body, hence why they are on centre court. After that, it seems like they feel bad because they know, firstly the Department will just carry on with the knock up so they concede saying they will work with them. Lately they’ve added in a new line at the end of their statements recommending that school boards are informed of whatever cut has been made. I’m really not sure what kind of tennis analogy I can make of that but it feels like hitting a very easy ball into the net.
The crowd would prefer to see the representative bodies take control and move the Department back to the baseline and keep them there. They’d love it if the representative bodies actually started to play the game and make life difficult but they don’t.
The third scenario is the most boring of all. It is the release of a circular or a information note. These little potshots from the Department of Education tend to add a small amount of extra work to the school. They’re similar to when someone hits a shot a little deeper or wider than one expects and one has to change position or move quickly to get the ball back, thus losing a little bit of energy or control.
In situations like this, the crowd is yearning for a Nick Kyrgios reaction (or if you are a certain vintage, maybe John McEnroe?) but all they get is Juan Martin del Potro (I had to google which tennis player rarely argued with the umpire!) Despite being ranked the 3rd best player in the world in 2009, I imagine, like me, very few people know who the latter is.
Essentially, these days, rather than expressing any opinion on the small additions of workload, they simply inform their members of the change. And, of course, to inform their boards of management. Double fault.
Because tennis is a polite game, even if a match isn’t great, they will politely applaud. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a crowd boo wildly at a tennis match, the way you do at soccer matches. However, if a match is really good with some great shots, the crowd does go wild with appreciation. I remember going to conferences and the audience would be almost raucous with enthusiasm as people like Sean Cottrell would aim down the line or smash the ball right at the Minister of the time. You couldn’t help but stand with appreciation when he dealt a final blow and you really felt it was game, set and match.
I don’t blame the players though. I know they remember those days too and I know on the rare occasion they do get the crowd on their feet, they know they’ve done a good job. Bryan O’Doherty’s Spotify Playlist in 2022 was one such moment when the crowd were with him as he skilfully lashed backhand after backhand towards the Department of Education with some masterful drop shots. For me, the problem is over-coaching. Essentially, I think that the speakers have good technique and they do what they are supposed to do — the problem is there’s no risk. The spin-doctors, media trainers, HR people and assessors are so scared of taking a risk, you rarely ever see the player clip the net or skim the baseline. Everything lands nicely where it’s supposed to.
The difference between an amateur like me and the people with positions can also be compared to a tennis game. At my level, we often say that the person that comes out on top is the one that makes the fewest mistakes because at my level, we make lots of them. At the higher level, mistakes are much fewer so it’s the player that can carve out opportunities and can take them. This involves doing something unexpected, taking a risk and gaining control. We need the representative bodies to play more aggressively, to shout at the umpire, to go for the angles that the Department don’t expect. We need to get beyond the knock up. New balls please.
