Education

Britain’s skills crisis was addressed by the country’s leading educationalists today at The Spectator’s half-day conference, Giving Britain the skills it needs. Matthew Hancock, Minister for Skills and Enterprise, delivered the key note speech. In it he outlined his plans for better preparing young people for employment. ‘I’m determined that apprenticeships  become the established route for all school-leavers who don’t go to university; not as a second option,’ he said, before adding that ‘demanding higher standards of people isn’t setting them up for failure, as we’ve often heard from the left.’ Hancock’s speech focussed on the need to establish how technology must be used to ‘spread opportunity.’ Schools and colleges should

It lies rigged and fully masted in the harbour, the Ship of Fools, and soon it will be crewed by some of our favourite smarties. Is that Shami Chakrabarti charging down the gangway? It surely is. Those sharp elbows can be identified at a hundred paces. And is she being followed by Hanif Kureishi and Jeanette Winterson, eyes bulging like bulldog’s whatsits? Yes, they’re on parade too. Oh look, they’ve brought a chaplain, the Rev Giles Fraser. All shipshape and Bristol-fashion. Now they can cast off. If a person may be judged by the quality of his enemies then Michael Gove currently rests only slightly lower than the angels. As

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_12_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Matthew Parris vs Douglas Murray on the Birmingham Trojan Horse plot” startat=55] Listen [/audioplayer]I can remember where I was when Colin Powell presented to the United Nations his evidence for the existence of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. I was taking a friend to an emergency medical consultation at Victoria station in London and while she saw the doctor I settled down in the waiting room to watch the presentation on TV. I found it compelling. Trusting the then US Secretary of State and believing him to be a good man — as Michael Gove is a good man — I felt confident Mr Powell himself believed what he was

Following Freddy Gray’s piece yesterday about the pundits’ efforts to exploit the ‘Trojan Horse’ affair in order discredit ‘faith’ schools, I thought you might be interested in the statement below, from the Catholic Education Service, which pretty well sums up the argument. One person the CES may have in its sights when it talks about the charge of indoctrination is the former Education Secretary, David Blunkett, who observed yesterday that: there was a ‘muddle’ in the heart of government when it comes to religious schooling. ‘Our society does need an open, liberal — small ‘l’ — curriculum that embraces all faiths and no faiths, and teaches children to think for

Teenagers have never exactly been short of things to complain about to their parents. You didn’t give them enough support, sent them to the wrong schools, stopped them going to the right parties, or didn’t get them the latest iPhone. But Generation Rent, perhaps stirred up by too much time spent reading Ed Miliband’s Twitter feed, are likely to be especially aggrieved. To add to the traditional litany of charges from the younger generation against the older can be added one that might even have a kernel of truth in it — you stole our future. There is a case to be made that the big divide in British society,

My mum and dad never told me that I was found in a cabbage patch, or delivered by a stork. They took a straightforward approach to talking about sex, and always seemed far less embarrassed about it than I did. Once I started at my all-girls secondary school, PSHE lessons re-enforced the emphasis my parents placed on sex as an important part of healthy and committed relationships. The aim was to enable us to make informed decisions, and to feel confident saying no if need be, not to preach abstinence. Sex-ed sessions were good on the practical stuff, too. I’m grateful that, aged 16, my schoolmates and I bid farewell