Thursday 12 May 2005

Educational primer

Here comes another row another row about the state education system:
Parents may lose power to headteachers and local authorities under plans to change the way they are represented, it has been warned.
Although the plan is supposedly designed "to encourage more parents to become involved", the Scottish Consumer Council smells a rat. Good for them. But having noticed the problem the SCC come up with a totally wrong solution:
the creation of a professionally-run organisation which speaks for parents.
The only way forward for consumers of any product is to become customers instead of supplicants. That necessitates the privatisation of education, which would eliminate the need for pointless committees or forums.

1 comment:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

Andrew Ian Dodge
Al: cause you haven't worked hard enough. There is at least one blog on the left side of this page that praises Lady T often. 
 
As far as this daft idea goes; it smacks of yet another power grab by bureaucrats. They are doing their best to cut everyone out of everything. Another good example of this is how DEFRA treats farmers. Farmers are continually being lectured on how to do things by some pin-head in a suit who has never been on a farm in his life.

13 May 2005, 14:22:37 GMT+01:00
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dearieme
Because it goes without saying?

13 May 2005, 09:35:56 GMT+01:00
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Al
How come there are no websites praising Margaret Thatcher?

12 May 2005, 20:57:46 GMT+01:00
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Neil Craig
The expert most qualified for the position of boss of a professionally-run organisation which speaks for parents is probably a scottish consumer councillor.

12 May 2005, 19:48:57 GMT+01:00
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Andrew Duffin
This is part of an ongoing process. I've been chairman of two school boards and the state has been trying to rein them in ever since NuLab took over. 
 
The most important change was the withdrawal of the boards' power to add or remove names from short lists for Head Teacher positions. On both the boards I served on, we exercised that power quite ruthlessly, with excellent results for the schools involved in both cases. 
 
Clearly this was too much for the bureaucrats: the peasants were getting uppity, and had to be stopped. 
 
The inevitable end-result, as we now see, was the abolition of any real parent power, and its replacement by a talking-shop which can be ignored. 
 
Sad.

12 May 2005, 12:32:06 GMT+01:00
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dearieme
Yes, only being a customer gives you the power usefully to say "Get stuffed".

12 May 2005, 12:03:16 GMT+01:00