The start of this year’s Easter school holidays has been accompanied by an outbreak of mass hysteria in the press concerning impending GCSE examinations. Nothing better illustrates the sorry state to which so much schooling in England has been reduced by the current obsession with them than the advice to candidates quoted in today’s Times.… [Read More]
At the end of last year Civitas published a book on the state of Ofsted’s schools inspection; drawing on a range of – to use that technocrat term – ‘stakeholders’’ views, it includes those of a head, a parent and an inspector. One thing was very clear: the time and resources allocated to school inspections were inadequate. Perhaps surprising to some that any current quango is under-funded, budget inspections were considered to be at the heart of perniciously superficial inspections and unsatisfactorily trained inspectors. Let’s be clear: Ofsted’s very premise is highly flawed and the inspectorate has never been regarded as a good model by educationalists. Nevertheless, the bid to shave off 30 per cent of its budget has exacerbated some of Ofsted’s key weaknesses to the point of rendering it difficult for even its staunchest supporters to justify.
1st April. April Fool’s Day. A day for multiple press releases from the Department of Health. The new super-regulator, the Care Quality Commission comes into force. New Integrated Care Organisation (ICOs) pilots are announced. The Performance Framework is announced: minimum standards of quality, safety and financial management that patients can expect from the NHS. Patient… [Read More]
‘Allowing people to arrange their death is a simple act of kindness.’ So runs the title of an opinion piece in today’s Times that defends the morality of assisted suicide. It was written by A.C.Grayling, professor of applied philosophy at London University’s Birkbeck College. Tomorrow there is due to appear in the same newspaper a… [Read More]
There has been widespread press coverage of Mr Stuart Wheeler’s announcement that he intends to donate £100,000 to the UK Independence Party and to vote for UKIP at the forthcoming European Parliament election in June 2009. Mr Wheeler has said that whilst he still intends to vote Conservative in the local elections on the same… [Read More]
Ofsted is a publicly-funded agency whose job is to inspect schools on behalf of the state to ascertain their fitness for purpose. If it judges the education a school provides unsatisfactory, Ofsted can recommend that it be placed under ‘special measures’. Then, unless called-for improvements are made within a certain period, a school so placed… [Read More]
This spring Sir Jim Rose’s final report on the primary curriculum will be published, recommending that all children enter formal education by the September after their fourth birthday. This is in spite of the fact that a significant number of experts have already voiced concern that formal education for five year olds is inappropriate; a delay until children reach six is seen to be preferable. Nevertheless, there is a high probability that Rose’s recommendations will become law by 2011.
The International Monetary Fund recently forecast that the world economy will contract by 0.6% desipte the earlier prediction that it would grow by 0.5%, writes Kyial Arabaeva. At a time of deepening recession, increasing unemployment, soaring prices and gloomy economic prognosis by economists and experts who claim that the global economy will get worse before… [Read More]
Amidst predictable howls of protest from those who will accuse them of doing so merely to reinforce still further the privileges of the already undeservedly more advantaged pupils of public schools, colleges at Cambridge University have today announced that, from 2010, applicants must have gained at least one A* grade at A-level.
Over the last decade the government has made a number of attempts to revolutionise the teaching profession, some less successful than others. The most recent proposition is particularly questionable. The plan is to implement a ‘fast track’ teacher training course, in which candidates are fully trained and working in the classroom within six months. As if this was not controversial enough, it is said to be geared towards ex-City workers.