This will be story about a country that I've seen from up close for over a decade now. I formulated some opinions about schools, and they've been verified lately.
What if you had a good public education system and decided to destroy it through
cuts,
bureaucracy and
privatisation of educational delivery? What would the motivation be?
Only the permanent
social stratification of that society would be a logical goal from what I've seen. It's a
long-term class war wherein the government seems to want to
cut off its own nose to spite its face. One of the
richest countries in the world has
little manufacturing, not because of a lack of brains, but because most kids can't get a good education.
When your country is falling down to the bottom of the OECD's 30 Western countries, wouldn't you be trying to sort a few things out? Well, I know a country which isn't.
Their literacy stats are horrible. Their graduation rates are horrible. All they seem to do is pull rabbits out of hats to distract the media and the part of the public without kids. Parents can't help but know what's going on.
Case in point:
The solution to the bad school stats was to blame the 'crappy old school buildings' that previous administrations had built, and, the schools' administrators. These are being replaced. While they were at it, the government decided to let their
business buddies build and
run the new-fangled schools. These are the new
ACADEMIES.
Perfectly good buildings were scrapped, students were moved to new architecturally-brilliant buildings, built by corporations with some of their own cash, but largely with government money (read: loans). These academies were even
allowed to ignore school-board regulations and
teach whatever
bullcrap they wanted.
They put forth a beautiful picture,
Bella figura as the Italians say. But, the truth was
rather bruta.
Most of them are falling short of expectations, both educationally and financially. Apparently, some of them have resorted to withholding promised investment, leaving the government holding the bag.
My limited experience of the history of British schools has shown me a few things, but I lack enough knowledge to recommend answers, beyond the obvious stuff.
As the
maudlin, old-fart Pink Floyd video says, 'we don't need no education'.
They're double-negativing away, but describing what I've heard was a horrible system, in some parts, where teachers broke down and beat students. I don't know how widespread it was, but it didn't stop until the '70s.
Now, the shoe is on the other, younger, foot. School kids are
out of control, and are being encouraged to be so. I don't know if this still stands, but a few years ago, I heard that students who have actually
struck a teacher are not only kept in school, but kept
in class. Why would an education system, especially one run almost directly by the national government, encourage students to beat teachers? It is well- known that
new teachers average about 5 years at work
before running away, screaming.
The system is even paying a large proportion of new teachers
to go through a year's training.
I've seen it myself, albeit only a few times. The teachers visibly
shake during lessons, because they can't reign in students. They often spend their breaks chain-smoking.
Teachers and administrators are kept onsite until the evening filling in paperwork, so that the government can control data and thus misrepresent results and
foster divisions (the reporting of
racial incidents is particularly funny because schools reporting
zero-problems are inspected and berated.). Somehow, the government avoids
getting trashed over this
downgrading of so many children's futures
in this game with few winners.
Alas, I guess they were unable to fool the OECD.
It has been my opinion for 7 or 8 years that this deep-sixing (as we call it) was being done by the government itself in order to keep the poor poor, and to keep the (white-collar)
middle classes paying 7000 pounds a year for
private education, even if it means taking out
loans. You see, it's good for the economy if people spend (same modus operandi in
Health). Meanwhile, politicians disproportionately send their kids to private education because they came from those ranks, or because the populace is paying politicians so much money as to make this possible.
Unfortunately, the rich in this country are unable or unwilling to pull the country out of the doldrums. They're comfortable & lazy. Therefore, the government is throwing the country down the crapper.
more later
-Costick67 (8^P
checkitout:
Education Guardian 1 Dec 2009 stories:
-
The case of the missing students- Andrew Mourant-
'A ludicrously expensive con-trick'-Warwick Mansell
Guardian, 1 Dec 2009 story:
Lost youth-UK plummets in education table for teenagers- Rachel Williams
Young people in the
UK are among the least educated in the developed world, tumbling down the tables since the mid-1990s, according to analysis released today.
Among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), only Turkey and Mexico have a smaller proportion of 15- to 19-year-olds in education, the University and Colleges Union (UCU) said.
In 1995, the UK was ranked 19th among the 30 countries, with 72% of the group still at school, college or university. But by 2007, it had slumped to 26th place, overtaken by countries such as Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Greece. Figures for Japan and Canada were not available in the most recent set of data, which was for 2007.
A similar story is seen in the proportions of those aged 20-29 in education, where the UK fell from 15th in the table to 25th, with 17%.
The UCU said Brazil, Chile, Estonia, Slovenia, Israel and Russia were performing better than the UK, with higher, and still-increasing, proportions of young people in education.
Britain now risked being overtaken by the few countries still below it and being seen as "the poor man of the developed world, ill-prepared for life in the new knowledge economy", if urgent action were not taken.
The UCU's general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: "This shocking analysis brings home just how much the UK has to do if it wants to remain a key player in the new global knowledge economy.
"We cannot rely on our proud history when it comes to educational achievement or innovation.
"We have to face up to the fact that we cannot remain a first-world country with third-world levels of participation in education. Other developed countries are pulling away from us, and the developing nations are catching up and looking like they will overtake us.""The figures should worry us all. Sticking plaster policies from parties looking for votes just will not do."
A spokeswoman for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills said further and higher education was of crucial importance to the government.
She added: "We now have the highest ever rate of 16- to 18-year-olds participating in education or training (79.7%), more people than ever in our history are now attending university (1.92m), and the number of adults participating in further education stands at over 3.7m in 2008/09. We are proud of this record, but far from complacent.
"We remain committed to a world-class skills base by 2020 and have challenging targets in place to achieve that."
---end of story
Steve Karoshi: According to the EU law, we're not supposed to work more than 48 hours a week. I just wanted to know whether hourly-paid workers like me can get time-and-a-half for overtime hours and holidays. I mean, it's easier to pay me extra than it is to hire another worker, and I'm willing to work hard.
I'm going to crush your union.** You're a Postie, right? You're screwed. We're privatising you***, ya lazy pillock. Who do you think I am? Maggie Thatcher? You're lucky you have a job. By the way, we don't have many holidays anyway. We've got BANK holidays. Not the same thing, you see?
[pic-building for sail, cheap]
