Best Before: Education

How is it that every government manages to fuck this department up? How difficult can it be to stop all the petty squabbles about the two tier system, getting into the right school, university places? Simple, make it one size fits all. Remove the two tier system. Insecure middle class parents are just worried that their kids will end up becoming rapists and drug addicts because they may mix with kids from council estates and actually enjoy spending time with them. If you actually trusted your kids and didn’t smother them you wouldn’t have to worry whether they’ll rebel. And of course all kids from council estates don’t have ASBOS and those who have only do so because the government have fucked up their responsibility to those as well. But I’ll come to that at some point soon.

As for quality of provision, the state and private sector has, as far as I know teaching staff who are equally qualified to deliver high quality teaching. Problem is they are not supported in the state sector. Powers are taken away. Precious time is wasted doing CPD and crappy paper work and more and schools and headteachers are constantly playing second fiddle to the parents who, with respect, have little understanding of what teachers have to go through because they get an edited, fictionalised, dumbed down version of reality from the tabloid press. Rather than supporting schools, governments keep announcing stupid ideas that are unrealistic and actually haven’t improved the quality of education. Like the clueless proposal by Ed Balls for teachers to now have 'MOTs' that require teachers to have more tests. Hello? Don't they have CPD and teaching qualifications, along with teaching hours, planning and prep and god knows what else? You could pay them more for a start. But arseholes like Ed Balls do all this to pretend that they are doing something to address issues in education. What they are doing is muddying the waters and should stay out of it.

Just give the LEAs the money and let the experts in education (those who actually work in schools, colleges and universities) decide how to spend it. If we want your input and regulation we’ll ask for it. So make the system classess. Raise the leaving age to 21 and those who have no wish to be academic can and should train to do something vocationally. Those who don’t want to learn, the parents who want to complain, those who take the piss at school, penalise them. I’d rather not bring back borstall but those who want to opt out or are too disruptive can be taught via other means. Home schooling has to be reformed as well. Parents who wish to school there kids at home should be allowed to do so, once they have the necessary skills, experience and teacher training...and they should teach to the national curriculum, once this has been reformed to represent the soiceity we live in. What's this bollocks about school kids interviewing applicants for teaching jobs? It's one thing to bleat and squeal about the nanny state but this is beyond parody. You might as well have kids interviewing social workers, teens interviewing community support officers, Catholic preists, McDonald's staff, rocket scientists? Why is it that teachers are held in so low a regard in Britain? The image of teachers need to be celebrated and respected. This society wants to make the role models and fall guys in equal measure. You could start by rewarding and trusting them. Government and voters alike. Instead of acting like self-righteous wankers.

As for those journalists that bleat on in their annual pieces about A-level's getting easier, maybe they should actually spent a few weeks shadowing teachers or exam markers instead of insulting kids and parents who have worked hard to get qualifications. What they'd eventually realise once they've taken their pencils out of their constipated arseholes is that it's the assessment procedure which rewards rather than penalises. I speak as someone who is a qualified teacher and as marked exams.

Faith schools. The equal opportunities policy needs to be followed to the letter. If you're a teacher and you don't have a 'faith' this does not make you inadequate to work at a faith school. You wouldn't think that though, judging by the amount of teachers who either don't get an interview, let alone the one's who are not put off by some application processes that requires teachers to have a 'faith'. All schools should already be maintaning an all inclusive ethos and mission statement irrespective of your faith, sex, colour or ability. You wouldn't think it. If trust is one of the key themes of this election, more than any other time maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to trust the professionals who are qualified to deliver public services, and assess the middle managers and picky micro managers who interefere in something totally beyond them.

So who can best deliver this? That's anyone's guess.