According to a report by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, to bring public debt under control in the next ten years, the Government will have to raise the state pension age to 70, or raise the basic rate of Income Tax by 15p in the pound, or cut government spending by 10%, sending education, the NHS etc to the wall!
Why didn’t the Government put this money into their piggy bank instead of committing British troops, and billions of pounds, on the invasion of Iraq, and spending money like a sailor on shore leave, bailing out greedy banks?
I’ve heard of people working past retirement age to pay off their own debts, but this is the first time that I’ve ever heard of anyone doing it to pay for someone else’s mismanagement of money!
Daft I call it!
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Parent power
The Government are outlining plans today for a shake up in education whereby parents in England could get the power to force councils to improve the quality of their local schools.
Parents would be able to demand action at a school in their area, even if their children were not pupils. From what I understand, this would by-pass an OFSTED inspectors enquiry and Government intervention.
It would give parents of primary school pupils the right to complain about a secondary school that their children may be attending in the future. The local authority would have to take these complaints on-board and make every possible effort to raise the school standards. This includes replacing the head teacher, if the authority deems it necessary.
This is all well and good, but to me it seems like the Government has run up the white flag on education.
If the Government has washed its hands of the most basic element of a civilised society, education, then it has washed its hands of the country.
Do you want the country to be governed by a rabble that has turned its back on the future?
No? Nor do I!
Parents would be able to demand action at a school in their area, even if their children were not pupils. From what I understand, this would by-pass an OFSTED inspectors enquiry and Government intervention.
It would give parents of primary school pupils the right to complain about a secondary school that their children may be attending in the future. The local authority would have to take these complaints on-board and make every possible effort to raise the school standards. This includes replacing the head teacher, if the authority deems it necessary.
This is all well and good, but to me it seems like the Government has run up the white flag on education.
If the Government has washed its hands of the most basic element of a civilised society, education, then it has washed its hands of the country.
Do you want the country to be governed by a rabble that has turned its back on the future?
No? Nor do I!
Sunday, 26 April 2009
What's in a Name?
It’s Tory Spring Conference time down in sleepy Cheltenham. The Conservative education spokesman, Michael Gove, has come up with a cunning plan, he wants to create primary academies.
I think that what he means is, he wants primary schools to become autonomous by taken them away from council control and letting them set their own curriculum and hours of attendance.
It’s not for me to say whether this is a good or a bad thing, what I’m objecting to is the way politicians are hijacking the language to suit their own means. If there is an obscure meaning to a word settled right at the bottom of an entry in the OED you can bet your life that they will use it for their own ends.
I mean, academy, that’s never a primary school. An academy is a seat of higher learning, a place where they read Plato and Socrates, not 'Jane and John' first reader books! Academia is a university or a group of students from a university, not a collection of Portakabins on a council estate. An academic is a researcher or even a professor at a university, not Miss Smith who teaches finger painting.
A failing secondary school in my area was re-branded an academy a couple of years ago. It’s still a failing secondary school!
A newly built secondary school in my area is called So and So Campus (the name has been changed to protect the innocent). Campus sounds as cool as academy, but did the person who christened it know that a campus is the word for the grounds and buildings of a university, and not a level of education?
So get wise all of you politicians, Shakespeare’s Juliet was lying when she said, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”
I think that what he means is, he wants primary schools to become autonomous by taken them away from council control and letting them set their own curriculum and hours of attendance.
It’s not for me to say whether this is a good or a bad thing, what I’m objecting to is the way politicians are hijacking the language to suit their own means. If there is an obscure meaning to a word settled right at the bottom of an entry in the OED you can bet your life that they will use it for their own ends.
I mean, academy, that’s never a primary school. An academy is a seat of higher learning, a place where they read Plato and Socrates, not 'Jane and John' first reader books! Academia is a university or a group of students from a university, not a collection of Portakabins on a council estate. An academic is a researcher or even a professor at a university, not Miss Smith who teaches finger painting.
A failing secondary school in my area was re-branded an academy a couple of years ago. It’s still a failing secondary school!
A newly built secondary school in my area is called So and So Campus (the name has been changed to protect the innocent). Campus sounds as cool as academy, but did the person who christened it know that a campus is the word for the grounds and buildings of a university, and not a level of education?
So get wise all of you politicians, Shakespeare’s Juliet was lying when she said, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)