Cameron's well-schooled argument

MilkSnatcher

Cutting benefits for parents whose children truant? So let's see, CEOs whose business ideas don't work get sacked (mostly), parents whose children truant lose their benefits, but politicians whose policies don't work....stay in the job or go into opposition and get paid the same. (Sure shome mishtake here (Ed))

daniel maris

The Free School movement is going to deliver private schools at state expense and Islamic sectarian schools where pupils will never be exposed to liberal democratic values.

Cameron's education policies are appalling.

Frank P

The racism involved in that photograph is emetic.

Publius

What happens if your child plays truant and you're not on benefits?

Sorry, this is just so much hot air from Cameron, as usual. I suspect it's intended to soften up the Tories prior to conference season.

If Cameron really cared about education, he'd allow profit-making schools and he'd allow Grammar schools for those who want them.

Robert Eve

Cameron is quite right to cut benefits for truants' parents.

However he is delusional over the EU.

I've never known a PM who gets so much right and so much wrong.

Holly ......

Frank P.1.19.

Only if the children were there just to be
in the picture.

They are still children and, only the blind see the colour.

FvH

Yet more fancy words and speeches and not enough action - he talks the talk but can't walk the walk
25 Free Schools is too few.
Without allowing schools to make a profit this will continue to be a charming little vanity project
I suppose it's what comes of being in a coalition but it's yet another example of a lack of meaningful change

JohnPage

Persistent truants should also have their own entitlement to any benefits in their own right delayed.

The deal is you take the free state education which notionally equips you for employment.

If you duck the education and then can't get a job, why would you deserve unconditional welfare?

Andy Carpark

Go on, surprise us. What did Boneless Dave say in this speech?

Educashun. Educashun. Educashun. Innit?

Fergus Pickering

Well, Frank, it rather depends where the school is. If it's in inner London that would be the way it is. The white children live in Surrey. No, not the bloody Oval, you know leafy Surrey.

In2minds

"wants to look........."

Uh oh! Another aspiration from H2B, shall we check this out in a year to see if anything has happened?

Dennis Churchill

There is an inverse relationship between how politically correct (in cultural Marxist terms) an organisation is and its fitness for purpose. Think social services, the Home Office, and the criminal justice system etc.The reason; of course, is that political/social engineering considerations take priority over the primary purpose.
The problem with education in this country is that it is shackled by cultural Marxist dogma. While it remains designed, it would seem, to suit teachers, is anti-meritocratic and tied to the Blank Slate theory of the denial of human nature nothing will improve.

2trueblue

Talking about responsibility is not hot air.

michael

Teachers should be suspending kids for persistently unruly behaviour, working parents will lose pay or have to fork out for
alternative care. Those on benefits, now not availiable for work should lose too .

lescam

If Dave "you do the fighting and I'll do the talking" Cameron really cared twopence about the education of the "little people", he would do his utmost to bring back or encourage the return of grammar schools. There has never been a better system of giving a firstclass education to anyone, regardless of income or class.

I still remember (I am now 72) being taught at my grammar school in the early 1950's about differential and integral calculus, Latin up to O level, and the merits of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Coleridge. These schools were magnificent. My grand-daughters are fortunate enough to live in an area that still has them, but so many children are shunted into poor comprehensives which don't encourage them to make the most of themselves. One of the reasons I didn't vote Tory last time, after a lifetime of doing so, was the pathetic attitude towards grammar schools taken by Dave and his cronies, who are apparently so afraid of offending the Left. A commitment to grammar schools would always get my vote, even though personally I would not benefit from them as my children and grandchildren have all grown up.

TomTom

Education is a complete shambles. There are no clear principles. It seems Free School Meals are a key qualifier; that dump postcodes are important; that poor academic attainment is a selection criterion. Hardly the basis of stellar success on the global stage.

Looks like England is for Losers and those with ambition should look abroad to IB Schools where thinking and attainment are valued rather than paper-chasing Credentialism

Vulture

Anyone who thinks old flabby face will do anything is delusional.

The posters here who say its all hot air are quite right. He will not actually DO anything at all.

And Frank OP is also correct: the carefully posed racial balance makes me spew.

Is there anything, anything at all that this faker says or does that is heartfelt and not said or done for temporary effect?

We know there is not.

TGF UKIP

Take no notice of all these nay-sayers, James, just you carry on believing and just you carry on spinning. That office in Downing Street can't be far away now.

Verity

Frank P 1:19 - You took the words right out of my mouth, so to speak. I almost threw up.

Verity

Holly 1:19 - Hold the little lessons in life, preachy gal. It is the blatant racist pandering that Frank P and I object to. And the "subtle" subliminal message that 50% of British children are black.

Cogito Ergosum

Britain needs 1000 grammar schools to give its bright children the education needed to make Britain thrive.

How many people in the Department of Education understand the statistical argument behind that figure?

How many people in Cameron's government understand...?

Coffee Housers are invited to guess the answer (in r0und figures).

Frank P

Holly (1.35pm)

You are talking to your grandfather not your grandson. Don't be so fucking disingenuous. Cameron has only two strings to his bow - politics and PR. There is no such thing as an accidental grouping in a photo-shot with Call me Dave. Many previous for stage managing and pandering to the gallery. They are not children - they are props.

daniel maris

Some thoughts on education:

1. You can't have effective education without a discplined atmosphere.

2. You can't have effective education
without a common language in the classroom.
All English speaking children should have a right to be taught with other English speaking children.

3. Not all children are academically inclined and there is no reason why they should be. To pretend they are and to make them jump through academic hoops is a waste of time and a form of mental torture for the kids concerned.

4. Less is more. Fewer lessons, but in smaller classes would have a much more beneficial effect. We should be looking to reduce the time children spend being taught. The freed up time could be spent on educationally-orientated computer games, exercise and life skills. That would be much more effective than putting kids through 7 hours of a pretence at education.

5. In the worst areas of educational attainment we should be experimenting with weekday boarding schools.

john miller

Oh yes, Dave chose Education and not Chancellor, but I think for a rather different reason than you have given.

TomTom

Why do you illustrate a story about Cameron with a photograph of Tony Blair ?

Verity

Holly - The children were there to elevate Dave as a colour-blind mahatama.

There was no "racial balance" either, to whoever mentioned "racial balance". I saw a black kid and what looked like a muslim kid. I saw no indigenous British children. Just two reps of two rather unwanted immigrant groups.

Dave's a nasty piece of work. Remember how he hawked that disabled kid (RIP) round tirelessly? Being slid in and out of NHS ("NHS, everyone! We're just like you!!!!!!!") ambulances day after day. Major photo op. Dave pushing the disabled child in his stroller. I don't recall other policians taking care that they get their photos taken while pushing child in a stroller on the public street. Most politicians keep their children out of the media.

Dave people wanted two immigrant groups in that photo and ignored the vast majority (for how long?) of indigenous children.

As I have said many times, since the first time I saw his flabby, smug, self-regarding face, that this man is a very nasty piece of work.

The public recognised it, too, because even after 13 years of destructive, vicious Labour, they couldn't bring themselves to vote for him.

The notion of coalistion governments should be ditched. If a party isn't strong enough to win a general election, there should be a mechanism to have another GE within four to six months.

The British are ill-served by the current situation, where a loser can cut a deal with another loser and assume the mantle of governance.