Mike Baker spoke at the convocation of the Department of Education at Oxford Brooks University in 2011. For a long time he has been a journalist at the BBC, on education. Short translation from English: Ruhina Taskin

I am very happy to be with you today. Congratulations everyone.

I graduated 32 years ago, in 1989. Margaret Thatcher was barely prime minister then, Sony Walkman was considered the top technology product, the average house price was 13,000 pounds, inflation was 16 percent ... And you wouldn't believe, my favorite team in the football league was Ipswich Town two steps ahead of Manchester United! That was a completely different world.

Schools in England were not then part of the national curriculum. However, this situation began to change from the time of Thatcher.

Shortly after that, I started doing journalism with education.

Thatcher began the national curriculum and national examinations in the late eighties. This is still going on.

But now I believe that bringing the education sector from independence to accountability has gone a long way. I'm not saying the tests aren't right. But taking tests so often and giving them so much importance also causes some unintended things to happen.

The education system in England once had the lowest number of examinations. In just a few decades, it has become much more. Most of the schools have reduced the subject of teaching. They are emphasizing only on the examination syllabus.

I was lucky that we were taught so much outside the syllabus. And those things have had a far-reaching effect on my life.

For example, our English teacher thought that the English syllabus was too short. So he allowed us to create our own syllabus. And that's when I discovered George Orwell's literature, which later sowed the seeds of my journalistic life.

That is to say, the primary school teacher who allowed me to watch a cricket match on television during school lunch; Which has made me interested in cricket for a lifetime.

I said these things to talk about education on a large scale. Not just keeping an eye on the exam date, not being compelled to go to the next step in career or education just to think about learning.