FE News
ROKTalk, the text-to-speech service for websites designed to ‘make websites talk’ through converting written text on websites into real-time, real voice, audible speech, has today announced it is to gift the service to up to 5,000 primary and secondary schools across the UK this year through it’s not-for-profit organization, The ROK Foundation.
There are approximately 30,000 [...]
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Comment
It has come to our attention that the outdated and counterproductive managerialism found in schools shows no sign of crawling back under the rock that it came from.
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 [...]
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Comment
Interesting to note that Michael Gove will be the next Education Secretary in the UK.
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 [...]
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Pretend to listen and they shall not kick up a fuss:
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 [...]
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Comment
To the TUC, teachers work the most hours of any profession and a significant proportion of that being unpaid OT.
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 [...]
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Comment
In “Ten education issues the new government should address“, former director of the Institute of Education (doesn’t say which one) Peter Mortimore tells us his wishlist for the next government.
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 [...]
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Comment
NuLab’s manifesto mentions the E-word but ‘fairness-for-all’? Not if you’ve recently been to or thinking of going to university. Tuition fees, student loans, unemployment and unaffordable property prices. Thank you, Gordon. What a guy!
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In “Ten education issues the new government should address“, former director of the Institute of Education (doesn’t say which one) Peter Mortimore tells us his wishlist for the next government.
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 [...]
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Comment
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
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Comment
Calls to raise tuition fees and increase parental contributions to education come as no surprise to us here at EducationState.
True to form, an organisation that no-one has ever heard of – Association of Graduate Recruiters – calls for radical changes designed to make the world a better place and then hopes that its members notice [...]
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We again, as we do every year, make a point of reminding Joe Public how overworked and underpaid teaching professionals are with an article ‘Teaching professionals most likely to clock up unpaid overtime’ taken from the University and College Union (UCU) website.
“Teaching professionals are the group most likely to clock up unpaid overtime, according to [...]
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Comment
The BBC Education news desk and the The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) seem to believe that a recent ICM survey shows teaching is ‘under rated’.
This may be the case but the study does not show this. The study actually shows us not that teaching is under-rated but that prospects for career development [...]
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Comment
The NUT has been asking its members to voice their opposition to proposed teaching licences to send in postcards.
To be renewed every five years, licences are intended to improve teaching and weed out the bad apples. Teachers and unions are up in arms about this as they see it as yet more paperwork and form-filling. [...]
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We have mocked the ineffectiveness of the NUS in years gone by but they are flexing their muscles again and we applaud them.
In today’s Guardian it is reported that, “Students will name and shame MPs who refuse to oppose rise in tuition fee”. Now modern-day students are not known for their radicalism and long gone [...]
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Alan “Postie” Johnson, under attack by usually passive scientists, is aiming to deflect attention from his pathetic attempt to stifle freedom of expression last week by ordering YET ANOTHER review of a Government body that isn’t doing what it’s supposed to i.e do exactly as it’s told.
You may be asking what this has to do [...]
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Comment
Should knowledge be graded to fit the learner? From pre-school reading books to advanced English textbooks, there exists an enormous selection of material that is designed to avoid scaring students while at the same time allow them to progress. Are such materials helpful, however? Or has this need simply been created by marketing teams to [...]
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We at EducationState have started the new academic year with all the enthusiasm of the last but still face one wrongly-held belief after another.
Take Literacy. Why can’t the powers that be understand that in today’s economy higher-level paper-based skills are not as crucial in the world of work as keyboard-based ones? Clearly, a well-structured essay [...]
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Congratulations from EducationState to the civil serpents and politicians who came up with the idea of splitting the DfES up into two parts: Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR).
Genius. So impressive. You think, you spend your younger years slaving away for exams that prove [...]
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The Business Link website urges companies to incentivise their staff through perks.
It states:
“Perks are generally a good method of tempting new employees and retaining workers as they are not related to productivity. Perks can encourage staff attachment to the business.
The options
There are a wide range of perks, including:
* occupational pensions
[...]
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At EducationState we think staff members should be properly rewarded for years of service. Far too many staff in recent times have left with nothing more than a whimper, despite 20-30 years service under the belt. All too often these members of staff are gotten rid of just to lower the wage bill and to [...]
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Comment
An article posted today on the BBC News website – ‘Schools ‘got better’ under Blair’ – clearly shows how they pander to the Establishment.
Where the article should focus on Professor Alan Smither’s call for an independent school review body to establish objectively whether students are progressing, instead it chooses a headline favourable to the Government. [...]
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Comment
Heard the one about expecting a first-class public service but not wanting to pay for it? It’s not funny and this philosophy affects all of us.
In a country where the government pays backhanders to a Saudi businessman so they buy our toys that kill, no money can be found to meet the reasonable pay demands [...]
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Discussions here have led us to conclude that the school/college year needs to change.
We believe terms should be scrapped or shortened. Semesters should stretch through the summer holidays, while teachers and students should be able to choose when they study. Summer course save on heating bills and result in a reduced carbon footprint. Being able [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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Comment
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 [...]
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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 [...]
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The recent OECD report on Higher Degree Earning Power highlights a number of things.
There is clearly a link between having an education and boosting your earning potential and this is something that Flash Gordon and his mob would have us believe unequivocally. However if you look a little deeper into the subject you will notice [...]
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“The Universities Secretary Lord Mandelson today announced the appointment of Lord Browne of Madingley as chair of the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance.”
A farce already. The appointments do not include anyone whose income will be harmed come the inevitable hike in fees. In fact, the review panel is so unbalanced and [...]
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“Universities make £60bn a year for UK economy, study finds” faithfully reports the Guardian.
UK Universities report, produced for Universities UK by Ursula Kelly, Donald McLellan and Emeritus Professor Iain McNicoll of the University of Strathclyde, attempts to show how profitable and integral the university ‘industry’ is. Apparently, “through both direct and secondary or multiplier effects [...]
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Comment
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 [...]
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Comment
Recent headlines have highlighted how education research findings must be treated with a little suspicion.
Contrast the findings of the government-funded UK Commission for Employment and Skills (Ukces) review into further and higher education, which calls for yet more league tables – this time in FE – with the Cambridge Primary Review that calls for formal [...]
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“Science adviser warns of fee rise”, writes someone at the Beeb.
We don’t think so. At EducationState we see this very differently. The Government to appease HE are appointing ‘advisors’ to make such statements so that HE staff can maintain their present living standards while pretending that to retain ‘our’ competitiveness in science we need to [...]
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Ahem, not really. This post will set out an assessment of the methodology of the Times Good University Guide 2010. The aim is to show how judgements of quality based on these tables are untenable. More seriously, it highlights the muddle that the current all-encompassing scientific paradigm so beloved of Government has landed us [...]
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Comment
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 [...]
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Grading?
Grading takes many forms: A to Z, percentages or in Higher Education 1st, 2:1, 2:2 and so on. They are used as proxies for student’s ability (quality) and enable the making of judgements or decisions. Such grades are generated in interviews, examinations, appraisals, observation and other ways.
Fairness?
The meaning of fairness is far from [...]
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If you want an insight into how important accent and pronunciation are to learning, check out the latest research on teaching literacy to children.
Seems that we learn words based not on BBC English phonics but according to how we process words. No longer can we allow external assessment as this allows for socio-cultural inequality and [...]
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If you ever wondered who is/was responsible for Education Policy in the UK then look no further than this man…
Education Reform Lessons from England
An Interview with Sir Michael Barber
Publication Date:
January 13, 2006
England’s education system has undergone rapid and ambitious reform in the past decade. In 1997, a newly-elected Labour [...]
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Comment
Education academic Professor Alan Smithers has said at the recent NUT conference that “unlike previous governments (New Labour) has taken upon itself responsibility for ‘delivery’ through targets and pressure from the centre.
“Schools have been reduced almost to factories for producing test and exam scores.
“But scores are not the product of education in the way that [...]
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The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher
by John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991
“Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing better to do, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. My license certifies me as an instructor of English language and literature, but that isn’t what I do at all. What I teach [...]
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Why are there so many exam boards? The Edumonolith is the supplier of patronage, we know, but is it really necessary to have exams tailored to every level. Learning doesn’t happen in such a cosy way so why then do we still persist with levels and grades? One exam level to join them all, please. [...]
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Interesting reading on the Beeb. Reported that there are now 34,000 students being taught at home. They say there is a dispute regarding the figures. But, are we to believe that these figures are any less reliable than those quoted elsewhere?
Are the DfES deliberately sowing the seeds of suspicion in our minds so that we [...]
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News today that a new curriculum will as they put it ‘excite learning’. Really? Sounds like the end is nigh for the Curriculum. If, with all the changes that have taken place, it still isn’t ‘exciting’ then maybe it needs wholesale reform. We know, why not get rid of it, stop telling teachers what to [...]
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