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?

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!

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?

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.

…and even less debating of education issues.

But does it matter?

What good will come of debating such issues on national TV?

Well, to address this and perhaps throw some light on whether it matters at all, we are going to stage a debate of our own. The UK Election Debate: Education Special.

Live from TV Centre

Brown: Yes, I am determined that children in this country will continue to benefit from the reforms that we have put in place that have seen significant increases in standards at all levels of education and we can look forward to more of the same

Cameron: Yes, I believe that children in this country deserve better and I’m the man to do it

Clegg: Yes, I believe that neither of you care about education like I do

Brown: We have invested heavily over the years to raise salaries, increase the number of trained teachers, and in refurbishing schools so that they are prepared for the knowledge economy and the challenges that face us in the 21st century

Cameron: We can do it better

Clegg: We could do it better than both of you

(….and so on)

Do we really learn anything from this aside from the vanity of partisanship?

It seems that debating is mere performance, carefully staged and meant to avoid rather than solve problems. And, discussing issues is of value only because those issues will be on viewers’ minds come polling day. But it has been arranged that only the issues that have clearly fixed positions that these parties traditionally reflect are touched upon.

This is why education is not on the debating agenda. No side wants voters to think about education because the response can’t be predicted or controlled. There are too many unknowns. Crime, immigration, foreign policy and other issues can because the battle lines are more clearly drawn. You either want harder or softer punishment, more or fewer immigrants, attack or retreat.

But with education, aside from corporal punishment (crime policy?), there are no simple solutions, stock responses or reliable positions. And this is why no politician will want to discuss it and this is why tacitly the three party leaders have given education a wide berth.

Hardly inspirational leadership. More ostrich than Henry V.

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