ESSEX, England – A British education expert claims the country’s public education overhaul will encourage students to spend far more time than necessary doing “completely pointless” homework.

Essex philosophy and religious studies teacher Tom Bennett, one of two British educators nominated for the Global Teacher Prize, told The Independent that reforms underway in the country’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, will result in an increase in students’ after school studies with little educational benefit.

“I’m not anti homework – it can be a useful tool – but too often it’s an exercise in back covering, or box ticking, with no real thought for the educational outcome,” Bennett said.

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“I have no problem with setting challenging homework,” he said. “But I do disagree with the pickpocketing of family time to serve the requirements of a school’s homework schedule.”

The Independent points out that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a multinational intergovernmental organization, recently released a report showing that British school children are assigned more homework than students in Finland, Germany, Sweden and Austria, but less homework than students in Russia, Singapore and Shanghai China, Poland, Ireland and Italy.

But Bennett, who directs a ResearchEd conference, believes British students’ “post-school work load will be increased by teachers in order to prove they are meeting the new targets set by Ofsted, in which progress will be measured through schoolbooks and homework.”

Ofsted announced in October a plan to change how it evaluates the country’s public schools are evaluated, moving from full inspections for all schools to more frequent but shorter inspections for schools with high student performance, and an increased focus on poor-performing schools, PublicFinance.co.uk reports.

Leaders of the National Union of Teachers, the British teachers union, aren’t big fans of the reforms because they contend it discourages teachers from taking jobs where they’re needed the most.

“If the proposals for shorter, sharper inspects for ‘good’ schools means there will be a greater emphasis on examining data, then this would be yet another backward step,” NUT general secretary Christin Blower told Public Finance.

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“The education schools provide cannot be reduced to its headline examination results in a few core subjects. While we welcome the fact that there will be no routine no notice inspects what we need is a root and brand reform of the role of Ofsted. The current system is resulting in many heads and teachers unwilling to take on jobs in disadvantaged schools – afraid for their jobs as a result of poor inspections, afraid to take risks and be experimental.”

The union resistance to reforms, particularly those that more closely scrutinize teachers in the classroom, mirrors complaints about standardized testing and teacher evaluations in the United States.

In Great Brittan, the Ofsted education reforms have even become a campaign issue.

Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt recently pledged to reform Ofsted if the Labour party takes control after this year’s election, and his comments sound a lot like American politicians with close ties to teachers unions.

“Ofsted has to move beyond box-ticking and data-dependence. Too much teacher workload is the product of preparing for an inspection,” Hunt recently wrote for The Guardian. “Yes, Ofsted must confront mediocrity, but it must also start to allow (head teachers) the space to innovate and develop a richer criterion of school achievement.”

He also claims Ofsted is overly politicized.

“It is not Ofsted’s place to adjudicate on whether schools have performance-related pay, whether a good school should be converted into an academy or to follow every ministerial fad on British values or otherwise,” Hunt wrote.