Don't blame it all on the pupils' parents

I CAN still - dimly - remember the time when I was a perfect parent. It was February 1994, and not only did I have all the answers, I could not understand why so many people seemed to be getting it so badly wrong. It's not as if rearing progeny is particularly challenging - meerkats do it, Patsy Kensit does it. Then I had my first baby.

Parenting is the only skill whereby the more you practise it, the less confident you become. So when David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, told his association's annual conference in Cardiff yesterday that the problem with our society is not failing schools but failing parents, it struck a chord.

When it comes to parents, there is a basic design fault. It's not just that we have a built-in obsolescence, we are inconsistent, prone to error, often fail to meet basic government specifications and have a very poor grasp of binary numbers. Frankly, the sooner mechanisation takes over, the better.

In the meantime, we are stuck with the current substandard model, and yesterday Mr Hart pointed out just how inadequate that is. Poor parenting is responsible for "atrocious diet, leading to obesity", children "glued to computers" and homework left undone. His solution is for parents to enter into a "learning contract" with schools. He also wants head teachers in schools with low attendance and behavioural problems to be paid £120,000 a year - a mere £10,000 less than the education minister.

There is certainly no shortage of feckless parenting around. It is now commonplace for parents who have utterly failed to give their children even the most basic standard of care to blame the authorities when the inevitable tragedy happens. The incidence of parental neglect in Scotland has increased by more than 50 per cent in last few years.

It is a point which will be made by the Nobel prize-winning educationalist James Heckman when he gives the Fraser of Allander Instutute lecture tonight. Families are major producers of skills, and the growth in single-parent families and out-of-wedlock births bodes ill for Scotland's future because such families produce impaired children who perform poorly in school, he warns. It is a tough analysis, but one that Scotland needs to hear.

According to Mr Hart, inadequate parenting is to be found in affluent families, too. He maintains that educational underachievement is not the fault of the government or of schools but of poor parental role models.

The irony is that there should be such a crisis in parenting at a time when there has never been more advice aimed at parents. An entire industry is devoted to telling us how to do everything from choosing a baby's name to spotting a nicotine-laced lollipop. More than a million websites cater for every proclivity, from pagan parenting to gay and lesbian parenting, and they have the answers to questions you didn't even know existed.

"Can you get high from a can of whipped cream?" asks a mother of Parenting Is Prevention, the website for parents who want to keep their children drug free. If you think the answer to that question is no, you still have a lot to learn about drugs and should sign up for a course in paranoid parenting forthwith.

We have now reached a state where parents are bombarded with so much conflicting advice and so much government interference in the way children are raised that we are in danger of losing our natural instinct for parenting.

Send your child to piano lessons or ballet and you risk being accused of pushy parenting. Pay for extra tuition because their maths teacher's grasp of binary numbers is only marginally more secure than your own, and you are in danger of "hot-housing" and producing over-stressed over-achievers. Follow expert advice and give them plenty of "down-time" to hang out and do their own thing, and you risk being accused of negligence and lack of parental involvement.

But if poor parenting is to blame for disruptive classroom behaviour, it is only part of the story. Government policy may now be changing, but for too long it conspired to deprive teachers of any effective method of disciplining children while turning a blind eye to the trouble-makers. Equality of opportunity often meant that no matter how obnoxious the pupil, head teachers were powerless to take action. Teachers suffered, as did the pupils who wanted to learn.

For every feckless parent condoning truancy, there are two more tearing their hair out because their children are being taught in an atmosphere which is the antithesis of learning. For every abusive parent, there are two more deeply concerned because their children are being bullied and the authorities refuse to act.

Nobody who has an interest in education can fail to sympathise with a teacher faced with a violent pupil, but the fact that teachers are now routinely complaining about pre-school children does raise questions. Who are these adults who admit without the slightest hint of embarrassment that they cannot control a class of four-year-olds? Why are they employed in our schools?

We hear a great deal about children with learning difficulties, but what about adults with teaching difficulties? Two years ago, Scotland's teachers won one of the largest pay deals ever struck in the public sector. Staffing levels were increased and teaching time was reduced. In return, teachers promised to demonstrate the professionalism for which they are rightly known. Nobody expects a phalanx of Mr Chips, but blaming parents entirely for the poor standards in schools absolves teachers of their basic responsibilities.

As for Mr Hart's "learning contract", parents already have a learning contract with schools. They pay the teachers' salaries via their taxes, and in return teachers are expected to educate the children. The state has plenty of sanctions at its disposal - including prison - if parents persistently fail to fulfil their obligations. The problem is inertia on the part of the state. And why should head teachers of failing schools be rewarded with six-figure salaries? That merely creates a financial incentive to keep truancy rates up and achievement down.

Most teachers are highly dedicated professionals, just as most parents have the best interests of their children at heart. By pitting teachers against parents and vice-versa, Mr Hart does pupils no favours.

Yes, parents need to take responsibility for the way they bring up their children, but parenting is not an exact science, undertaken in laboratory conditions. There is no neat formula - no matter how much the government wishes for one. It's a process of trial and many errors, frustration and deep joy. Parenting by contract, like teaching by numbers, is a recipe for disaster.

Teachers deserve to be supported, but they also have to be accountable for what goes on in the classroom and ultimately for the standards in our schools. By abrogating this responsibility, Mr Hart does his profession no favours. He is in danger of forgetting for whose benefit the education system is designed. It's not just children with special needs we need to worry about; it's teachers with special wants.