FE News
Category: Education Philosophy
Nothing new about ‘Higher Ambitions’
Mr. Mandelson has today been on the radio and in Parliament preparing the ground for YET ANOTHER review of HE entitled Higher Ambitions that fails to offer anything we didn’t know.
First reactions to this have revolved around increased tuition fees and redirecting funds to on-line, mature and part-time students.
We’ve taken the statement made by [...]
A* for Oxbridge
Oxford to defer use of A* grade for admissions? Why bother? Still doesn’t deal with the more fundamental issue of whether grades can be awarded fairly. Changing the grades won’t alter the fact that the whole grading system of A levels and so on is ripe for reform.
As argued before on EducationState, the awarding [...]
Exam(s) Costs
We can only but admire the logic of a system designed to record progress and raise standards that in fact is costing £700 million and rising. Brilliant for those who provide the examinations e.g. Cambridge University, Edexcel, Trinity and so on.
Why is it costing so much? External agencies holding educational establishments to ransom? A National [...]
New Labour to De-Nationalise Education
It has been revealed in The Guardian that from next year (2008/9) the running of Education will be placed in the hands of locally-appointed councillors, experts and teachers doing away with over 150 years of state control.
Explaining the volte-face Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, explained that “the time is [...]
Observations on Observations
WE would like to offer our sympathies to all those hard-working teachers who have recently had to endure an observation grilling.
As a result WE have put together a list of reasons why observations, at least in their current form, make little sense:
1. They lack objectivity because objectivity is unattainable. The mere selection of criteria with [...]
Back-Street Inspections
Recent lighter-touch inspection regimes have been welcomed by some but we believe such a welcome would have been less warm if the true impact had been known. For it appears that Ofsted inspections have been replaced with institution-led inspections.
Whereas in the past we may have expected observations to be in-house and free of [...]
We Want You As A New Recruit!
The mass hysteria surrounding the alleged epidemic of British youth destroying the very fabric of society has reached fever pitch. Not wanting to miss out on any political point-scoring, the Tories would love to see soldiers retrained as teachers. Apparently, they don’t think feral youth have it hard enough so they want to really rub [...]
Why exams don’t count!
David Miliband. What have we done to deserve someone like you?
According to Wikipedia, “David Miliband was educated at schools in London, Benton Park School in Leeds and Boston, Massachusetts before being educated at Haverstock Comprehensive School in North London, where he obtained a Grade ‘D’ in Physics A-level, and 3 Grade ‘B’s.” After fluffing his [...]
What next? A McLaureate? McNobel Prize? McOscar? Mc ...
Apparently, we shouldn’t be deriding the fact that McDonalds and other blue-chip companies are starting qualifications of their own.
Mike Baker, the BBC News Education spokesman, calls it “snobbery” to criticise these companies for trying to raise the esteem associated with non-academic, skills-based awards. Snobbery seemed a little inappropriate, however, so we’ve come up with some [...]
Generic Teaching Strategies
There is much talk today of what are known as “Generic Teaching Strategies.” These strategies are said to be applicable to all classrooms, lessons and contexts.
At EducationState we, predictably, reject this belief on the grounds that any teaching must be adapted to the localised conditions of that moment in time and space.
Unlike what can be [...]