Education

I understand that teachers are to be licensed with a view to their licenses being revued every five years, this comes in the same breath as the new policy on having individual tuition for every child who is falling behind in English & Maths. Is it me or does this not add up? So lets get rid of teachers in an all ready under populated industry while having the teachers who are already there having to take time out to tutor those children who are falling behind because there are not enough teachers to teach the children they have already got so you have to increase class sizes which makes things worse for the treachers who leave the profession, etc etc etc.
When will governments actually start taking responsibility for the the mess education is in. First it was the super headmaster at a giant salary, when in fact their higher wages would have been better served in recruiting more teachers to make the classes smaller so giving the children more attention. It's not rocket science, but yet again it is all down to cost against benefit statistics. Whatever happened to value? What we need is a proper cohesive education policy. One that involves negotiation with the teachers, and the parents as well as the civil servants and policy makers. This has to be done before policy is rubber stamped, not after.
Try looking at the Dutch system. You know the one where every child takes responsibility for its own learning, the country where children as young at primary school can speak another European language. Where children are allowed to flourish not be squeezed. In fact government should stop looking towards America for their solutions and start looking to Europe. After all are we not in the community now? If I go to Spain, or France or Germany and I have to go to hospital, there will be a doctor who will be able to explain things to me in English. I wish I could say the same here. I have had problems making myself understood in the a&e down the road.
We have become the village idiots of Europe.
We need to change the whole culture of education. Start by putting the word education back into the ministery title. Its not about skills and employment, its about long term belief that education is not about a series of short term fixes, but a long thought through strategy of improving this country through education. Start thinking in terms of education as a profession and not a caring industry. If teachers who are under enough strain have to worry about being tested all the time what do you think they will do, settle for a good old nine to five, with more money, better conditions and no stress, no fear of violence from pupils or parents and actually being able to take cheap holidays in term time; well what do you think they will do?
How about a bit of support from government? How about reinstating teaching as a profession? Bad teachers will leave anyway. Its pretty obvious that whoever thought up this policy has never stood before a class of thirty kids from an inner city estate. Do you know what? Even bad teachers are better than no teachers, now bankers, thats a different matter.
Stop rewarding failure. Stop allowing ceo's big payouts for putting people out of work and their homes. Now if you want to license one group lets start with CEO's of financial institutions. Where they have to show progress over five years, not just a large profit sheet but also social investment. How many small busineses have they helped over a five year period, not by lending them money but also with advice and guidence? How many first time buyers have they given the opportunity to buy their own house and advice on what grants are available to improve it? After all RBS is now owned by the government so why not instill the policy there as a start?
The problem is that MP's can only see everything in terms of their own tenure, but how about licensing MP's. Show us what you have done and we will renew your license so you can stand as an MP, if not it gets revoked so you can't. What about ministers. After all how many of them have been in the profession they are now in charge of. Perhaps a test on what they do every five years. Now thats what I call education.
By the way who ever is stealing our ideas please either stop or start giving us a credit, so we can appear on question time. I know its all there and it is nice that some of the solutions we came up with four years ago are now becoming policy, but give us a credit now and again. It won't hurt your reputation any, in fact imagine what we could do if we had the right backing and support.