The Future of Education?
Two hundred primary schools, that have consistently failed to bring their pupils to a satisfactory educational level, particularly in English and Mathematics, are to be abolished and merged with successfully performing schools in their areas, to form new academies. This will sever their connection with and reliance upon their current Education Authority (usually the County Council). Head teachers will have autonomous powers to hire and fire teachers, to adjust the curriculum and even to alter school hours where they consider it desirable.
Academy status has previously been given only to secondary schools but primary schools are now to be included in the programme.
All of this, Education Minister Mr Michael Gove told us in a tv news bulletin, was to free head teachers from the control of the ‘pen-pushers of the Education Authority’ (his phrase not mine!) and give them the independence that they need to bring our primary schools up to the standard of our European partners.
They also have to strive to change the attitude of teachers, pupils and pupils’ parents to make them appreciate the value of education and to feel pride in their school and in the educational progress of its pupils. New academies are given extra funds to further those objectives. When in Clacton,. two existing comprehensive schools were merged to form the new Coastal Academy, every child in both schools was provided with a smart new and distinctive school uniform and sports gear. The school also had sufficient funding to enable the giving of awards (incentives? bribes?) to pupils who attended school regularly and behaved themselves when they got there.
I wholly applaud the idea of bringing our schools up to European standards, I warmed to Mr Gove’s obvious enthusiasm for the project and I hope it will be successful.
I do question though its compatibility with the Government’s avowed intention of ‘power to the people’, of taking power away from central government and handing it to local communities. State primary schools are currently under the control of County Councils. They are not exactly ‘local’ and I would have thought that a move towards ‘localisation’ would have been to transfer them to district and borough councils most of whose members would then at least know where they are! Local people, the electorate, would have had an opportunity of expressing their opinion as to whether or not they are well run at local elections.
But no, they are to be handed over to Head Teachers, professionally qualified and no doubt, in most cases, well able to run them efficiently. They are not in any way answerable to local people though. They will not be entirely unrestrained. They have been given autonomy and central government funding in order to bring their pupils up to the required standard. If they fail to do that they will soon find that he who pays the piper calls the tune. They will have been freed from the control of the pen-pushers of the Education Authority only to find themselves controlled by the even more remote pen-pushers of central government.
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| Ingrid with 13 year old Jenny |
Mr Vole’s suggestion that education on the European mainland is better than it is in Britain may well have infuriated supporters of UKIP and readers of the Daily Express! Readers of this blog may gain a taste of the standrad of continental education from the extracts below from an essay written by Jenny, an Austrian girl of 13. She visited England (and Clacton!) for the first time last November, with her godmother Ingrid, a good friend of mine,
Her English is by no means perfect and there are a few factual errors. The restaurant where we lunched was, in fact, the Kingscliff Hotel at Holland-on-Sea. Jenny clearly misheard Harrods as ‘Herod’s’ and imagined that ‘seagulls’ was an abbreviation of ‘Sea eagles’. Her home is hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean and it was probably the first time she had encountered those large and always hungry birds. Pete, Arlene and Nick, whom Jenny met on the last day of her visit, are of course my elder son, daughter-in-law and younger grandson. Nick isn’t ‘studying’ in Brussels. He lives and works there.
Despite the errors, I understood exactly what she meant and, at the end of each paragraph I was eager to read the next one. That is surely the test of good writing. How many British thirteen year olds could do as well – in a foreign language? I think that some would find difficulty in writing such a narrative in their native tongue.
My journey to England
(Saturday)
Phew, I’m tired …
It was 3 am o’ clock and I had to get up. We took grandpa’s car, because it is driven very rarely and my dad thought the ride to the airport is a good opportunity.
We had to pick up Ingrid in Bayreuth, when we arrived in Bayreuth I realized, I had forgotten my passport. It was terrible, because it was my fault. We had to drive to Immenreuth to pick up my passport. I was afraid, we won’t catch our flight. I ran into the house and took my passport. We droved to Nürnberg, but the time were short and we had grandpa’s car so we can’t drive so fast because my dad didn’t know the car very well . . .
But we were lucky, we came to the airport in the last minute.
We sat in the plane to Zürich, it was a good flight………..
……………………………
…. when we arrived in London we had problems, because of the ‘check out’ the man ask in witch ratio Ingrid had to me, Ingrid said that I’m her goddaughter. The man said that Ingrid isn’t allowed to travel with me and he wanted to see a letter from my parents that I can travel with Ingrid. We hadn’t a letter so he said ‘give me the number of your mother so I can call her to be sure that you can travel with your godmother’.
We gave him the number but Ingrid said that my mom can’t speak English very well. . .
The man said ‘ I see you two are close together so you can go but the next time you travel together you have a letter from your parents IN ENGLISH’…………………
………………..We went by train to Ray, it was evening when we arrived in Ipswich. I was very tired because of the strenuous day.
(Sunday)
We could sleep as long as we wanted and then we had such a good English breakfast, it was wonderful……………
(On the Tuesday Ingrid took Jenny to meet friends of hers in Oxford)
………………….On Tuesday morning we went to Ursula Kneissel and on the way we saw a very funny house with a fish in the roof, it was really impressive.
Ursula Kneissel was a very nice person who told some very interesting things about her live especially about her childhood. In the afternoon we went to a church in Oxford with a big bell. After that we visit the Oxford University and the Library. But than we had to take a bus to London and we went to a big shopping street in witch we couldn’t stay long, unfortunately. Ingrid and I went to a big building ‘HERODS’ it was a big shopping paradise but so expensive ... a jacked for nearly 1200 pound it was unbelievable. We went to the station and drove to Ipswich.
(On the Thursday)
We went to Clacton on sea to visit Ernest Hall. He collects us at the station with his ‘iron horse’ and we visit the Clacton Pier to drink a coffee. After the coffee we fed the seaeagles. Then we walked to Ernest’s house, on the way we went past some houses and in one house there were some very cute cats and two dogs.
Jenny took this photo of Ingrid and I at the Kingscliff Hotel
Ernest called a taxi and we drove to a very fine restaurant called ‘ Holland on sea’ we had a very nice lunch and after that we drove with the taxi to Ernest’s house again, we were even at his house a little bit and then Ernest called a taxi and we were taken to the station………………………..
(On the Saturday)
The last day . . . I was sad because it was such a great journey. Ray drove with us to London. We crossed the tower bride. It is a fantastic bridge I like it so much. We drove to the London eye and we got a very good parking maybe one hundred meters away from the London eye……………. we had a breath breaking view out of the London eye. After that we drove to Pete and Arlene. Nick was there too, he’s studying in Brussels. We had lunch in a little cafe behind a shop. My salad was very delicious!
But then we had to drive to Heathrow and we had to say good bye.
When we checked in I termed that I haven’t a souvenir for my best friend Sonja... so I bought some overpriced cookies and a nice magnet.
Then we flew to Zürich and then to Nürmberg………….Maria collects us at the station in Bayreuth. At 12 o’clock I was in the bed.
Finally I want to say THANK YOU to everybody especially Ray and Ingrid.
It was an unforgettable journey and I met some nice people.
That was about half the actual essay. I have left the less-than-perfect grammar and spelling exactly as Jenny wrote it. What did you think of it?
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