Any government, especially a coalition, will shirk responsibility for its decisions when it can lest it be saddled with something that it can’t shift come coalition-meltdown and fresh elections.

The tired mantra of the free market is a trusty friend at such a time. It has never been proven either way that this causes a rise in quality. Intuitively, it just sounds good especially when the media do little more than lap up press releases and reshape them as their own.

The fact that this new development in free market innovations comes at a time when it’s now known that other privatisations (gas, water, electricity etc) have not lead to the expected number of positive improvements and the fact that costs never really seem to fall (IT projects, rail privatisation etc).

This is evidently not important to UK journalists. It is lucky that others are around to do their job properly.

Well, actually, no. One in three immigrants WHO TOOK THE TEST failed. That is very different to saying 1 in 3 of ALL immigrants failed the test as the Beeb headline implies.

We’re not saying that’s intentional but an emotive subject such as immigration requires a better choice of language than that, don’t you think?

Despite the fact that all the middle-aged people working at UK universitities didn’t pay a penny towards their own education, they seem ready to expect the younger generation to foot the bill so that they can retire early, tend to the garden and holiday overseas.

What the young need is someone who represents their interest. Not Clegg, who is ready to do any deal to appear important. What is needed, instead, is someone ready to unite the young behind issues that are of concern to them, including of course the disgrace that are tuition fees.

Other countries may have expect students to pay for their education via fees and loans but these are lower-tax countries where property is cheaper.

Young Brits have nothing to look forward to apart from high taxes, low wages, no property ownership and interminable loan repayments.

This will become all the more galling when they discover that they’re simply paying to maintain the living standards (and property prices) of those older than them.

This is a national disgrace. And one that does not bode well for the social fabric of the UK.

As concerning is the fact that only 4 of the 23 are women. There is also only 1 from an ethnic minority. And how many of them went to private, fee-paying schools?

In the UK, social difference is something to be proud of. In other countries this would be to their shame.

Apparently, this is ‘representative’ democracy. What a joke!

This dogmatic and wholly unedifying way to treat fellow human beings is at the heart of the peculiarly sickening manner in which ‘efficiencies’ are made in education. Doing it the education way has a particular nastiness of its own, of course, so here is our guide:

1. Managers asked to reduce costs by ministers.

2. Remember from business management training that wage costs are the largest single drain on funds.

3. Look for obvious targets to get rid of e.g. older teachers with pension entitlements.

4. Bring in OfSted inspectors to do the initial dirty work and legitimise the whole enterprise.

5. Rate school, college etc’ as ‘underperforming’ (based on the current fashion in classrooms but without any rigorous scientifically foundation).

5. The predictable ‘bad’ inspection results then lead to ’special measures’ and inspectors brought in again to observe teachers once more.

6. Surprise, surprise! Older, more expensive teachers are told they are out of a job unless their grades improve.

7. Teachers with decades of experience and local knowledge decide either to a) tell management and inspector to “f*&K off” and then quit b) take sick leave due to stress or c) play ball but sour the staff room atmosphere permanently.

8. Other good teachers decide that the school is not a good place to work and jump ship.

9. School is left with disgruntled, older and/or younger, inexperienced staff.

10. Union action follows under the pretext of protecting teacher jobs but really to drum up support, raise subscriptions and fight the Left’s corner once more.

11. Meanwhile, pupils and students lose experience, qualified and content staff and suffer lost classroom time due to strikes.

11. Management happy because they have reduced costs. Hooray!

A fine party member he may be but he most certainly didn’t go to a state school – although his bio conveniently said he did at one point – and isn’t a former teacher – he’s a journo – so what right does he have to be responsible for education policy in England?

None. Nada. Zip. Zero.

Can we please have someone who actually represents the vast majority of pupils, students and teachers who work in state education? What about an educationalist with classroom experience for starters?

http://hereview.independent.gov.uk/hereview/

What a joke!

Lord Browne-nose, how about explaining why students whose parents have paid taxes all their lives now face fronting up more cash so their kid can go to university? And how about explaining why kids with high grades should pay fees and loans so that other less able students can get a degree?

It is then worrying to note the latest research on the effects of OT published on the BBC News website. Working 10 to 11 hour days increases your risk of heart failure by two-thirds.

Recruitment campaigns and promotional literature for teaching should now have a health warning:

TEACHING SERIOUSLY DAMAGES YOUR HEALTH

We also have a wishlist for the new party of the moment:

1. Entrust control of Education to an independent body accountable only to the law courts. Set Education free from partisanship and politicking.

2. Allow teachers to educate as they see fit. Release them from the insanity of non-pedagogical paperwork and observation merry-go-rounds. Restore pride and trust in teaching staff by deferring to their better judgement in terms of learning and discipline.

3. Remove unnecessary layers of middle managers and administrators. Pay teaching staff for undertaking non-teaching duties i.e. goodwill.

4. Raise salaries, increase pension allowances, restore holiday entitlements and collaborate with private companies to offer concessions e.g. gym, holidays, car ownership, childcare costs, for teaching staff.

5. Scrap the national curriculum and replace with locally-set curriculums based on local demands and context.

6. Reintroduce Saturday sport and activity clubs with staff paid for OT.

7. Disband OfSTED and charge inspectors with bringing the teaching profession into disrepute.

8. End top-down, centralised research projects and reward teaching staff for conducting and recording research of their own. Research methods and theory training to be mandatory for all new teachers.

9. Restore parity between managerial and teaching staff salaries. Remember that it is teachers and not managers who are important.

10. Place enjoyment at the heart of Education once more.

11. Stop relying on Education to solve social problems. Force parents and guardians to take more responsibility for their children’s education.

12. Create a new teaching union without links to the Labour party.

13. Stop private businesses, religious organisations and lone philanthropists from running schools.

14. Force Oxbridge and other leading universities to accept state school quotas.

15. Abolish fee-paying schools.

16. Scarp tuition fees. Return the money generated by students loans and tuition fees to students. Apologise to the younger generation for making them foot the bill for something that should be theres by right.

17. Stop relying on international students to fund domestic students.

18. No SATs etc. for under 18’s. Examinations to be a last resort.

Fewer state pupils at Oxford – The Independent

Fewer state school pupils gain Oxford places even though more apply – The Times

Or, alternatively,…

Majority of ’state’ pupils at Oxford (still under-represented) will have gone to selective schools in middle-class areas and not to inner-city comprehensives – EducationState


Without mandatory quotas, Oxbridge colleges will do nothing – EducationState