Infant classes of 20 or under needed to close the achievement gap OECD figures out today show how poorly the UK continues to compare internationally on class size. Primary class sizes rank 4th largest at 25.8 (compared to the OECD average of 21.5). Additional government figures reveal that in England’s primary schools in 2007/08 the… [Read More]
During the last ten years, the Westminster Government has permitted and then forbidden schoolchildren to use calculators in examinations no fewer than seven times. If one single statistic could be said to reveal just how ill-equipped government is to make detailed decisions about such educational matters, this statistic surely is it. It was cited by… [Read More]
In an article for The Fraser Institute, we argue the lessons for Canada from the NHS reform programme are less that competition in health care has failed, but rather that market-based health care reforms in the UK have been crippled by the government’s unwillingness to stop directing the service from the centre. The reform programme… [Read More]
Yesterday was the first day of the month in which children return to school after the summer holidays. (Cue for cheers or boos depending on age.) Along with the start of the new school year, yesterday also saw the launch of a new anti-faith school initiative. Named the Accord Coalition, what distinguishes this new organisation… [Read More]
Chris Heaton-Harris, Conservative MEP and member of the Audit Committee of the European Parliament, has published a ‘rough guide to the EU budget’. The brief guide tries to make sense of the draft budgets for both the European Commission and European Parliament in 2009 and queries how MEPs can be expected to ‘tame the beast’,… [Read More]
Dr Ruth Lupton of the Institute of Education has taken the Conservative’s recent education report, A Failed Generation, to task for using dodgy statistics to claim that the education gap between rich and poor has widened on New Labour’s watch. Her criticisms are powerful but not exactly an overwhelming indictment of the report. One of… [Read More]
To claim, as some leading Tories recently have, that ours is a broken society involves their making two tacit assertions. One is about human societies in general; the other about ours in particular.
Poor quality ‘vocational’ or ‘vocationally related’ qualifications at GCSE are locking both low-income pupils and vocational education into second-class status. Pseudo ‘vocational’ qualifications being used to artificially reach A*-C GCSE targets Poorer pupils more likely to be pushed into vocational qualifications Out of the thousands of pupils getting their GCSE results today, many will have… [Read More]
Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France and current holder of the EU Presidency, is finally in the press for the right reasons. He was credited with ‘brokering’ a ceasefire between Russia and Georgia last week; a ceasefire which Russia seems to have no intention of honouring. Nevertheless, Sarkozy seems keen to capitalise on his role in… [Read More]
So much is wrong with the present state education system. Falling standards masked by ever-rising examination grades. Ever more ‘teaching to the test’ leading to an ever more constricted curriculum, and, in consequence, duller lessons. These in turn, perhaps, are a major contributory factor behind the very real recent large increase in bullying at school… [Read More]