Education

Pete rightly points to Michael Gove’s interview in The Times this morning as the story of the day.  Some producer interests are objecting to Gove dismissing the exam system as ‘discredited’ and his plans to return A-Levels to being a proper preparation for undergraduate study. But there’ll be no backing down. A Gove spokesman tells me that ‘’The system is discredited and it needs fixing. The public know it and support change. If some don’t like hearing that, tough. They’ll find it much more unpleasant in ten years if we don’t fix the system and they’re working for Chinese billionaires who did maths at Harvard.’ But, perhaps, the most important

The good, the bad and the ugly of the coalition’s reform agenda are all on display this morning. The good is the quickening of the pace in education. As Michael Gove tells this week’s Spectator, the 200 worst primary schools will now be taken over by new management, 88 failing secondary schools are to be converted into academies and any school where half the pupils are not reaching the basic standard of five good GCSEs including English and Maths will be earmarked for a takeover. Gove’s aim is remarkably simple: he wants good schools to take over bad ones.   The bad is yet another delay to the public service

Andy Burnham has caught up with Coffee House’s revelation earlier this week that the Treasury, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department of Education are going to have to review their position on academy funding because of a legal challenge.  Burnham is twittering, in typically hyperbolic terms, about the matter. But the reality of the situation is rather less dramatic. The coming changes will simply be a matter of preventing the taxpayer paying twice over for a service, once from the academy to the local authority (the new system) and once from the Department of Education to the local authority (the old system). Education is fast turning into one

One new institution does not a revolution make. But there’s still something a little revolutionary about the New College of the Humanities that is set to open, in London, in September 2012. Perhaps it’s the idea behind it: a private university that charges fees of £18,000 a year (with bursaries available to those who can’t afford that). Or perhaps it’s the names who are fronting it: AC Grayling, Richard Dawkins, Niall Ferguson, etc. They will, apparently, be conducting tutorials themselves. The public academics, it seems, are pitching their tents on the private sector. Mary Beard lists some reasons no to get too excited here. This is, she says, little more

There are plenty of pressing issues at the moment, but two in particular stand out: the cost of living and youth unemployment. Ed Balls lost no time in latching onto the first issue. On becoming shadow chancellor, he immediately attacked the government’s VAT rise and benefits changes, which he judged to be the main contributors to rising inflation. It has been a  successful tactic, sustained by rising inflation and determined political pressure. Now Balls seems to be turning his full gaze at youth unemployment. In article for the News of the World, Balls launches his campaign to save “Britain Lost Talent”. At the root of this is a plan to

The quality of teaching in schools is one of the main determinants of how well a child does. But, shockingly, in almost half the local authorities in England a teacher hasn’t been sacked for being incompetent in the last five years. Retaining sub-standard teachers has harmed the life chances of goodness knows how many children. So the news that Michael Gove is now consulting on rules that will make it far easier to fire bad teachers is welcome. The Gove proposals give heads much more control and enable them to get rid of a poor teacher in a term; at the moment it takes at least a year and is

If the Big Society were a horse, it would be shot. The wounds are too deep, the contamination too great, its legs are broken. And, worse, the Big Society is giving a good idea a bad name. David Cameron tried manfully today, but we only ever hear about the BS (as most Tory MPs call it) when he’s trying to relaunch it. No agenda can be sustained with such thin support. It has become hopelessly confused as an issue. Myths have crept in that volunteering relies on heavy state spending, so Cameron is talking out of his hat. It ain’t so — Jonathan Jones did the digging — but people

There may be a lot of debate about what the “big society” means, but there’s one thing we should all be able to agree on: we live in a big society – and it’s getting bigger. 62 million today. 64 million in five year’s time. And then on up to 70 million by 2028, according to the government.  (No, I’m not doing my bit, as my wife is about to have our third child.) What’s odd is how little debate there’s been at Westminster about all this. Why? Partly because it means you have to talk about immigration (still seen as toxic by many in SW1); partly because it is

What a knotty problem David Willetts has created for himself today. Speaking to the Guardian this morning, he floated an idea to help the universities make a bit of cash: they could, he suggested, sell extra places to students who were prepared to pay exaggerated fees up front. This isn’t yet government policy, and the students needn’t do the paying themselves (they could be sponsored by charities or employers, for instance), but the Guardian pounced nevertheless. “Extra places at university for rich students,” blared its front page headline. Not a good look for the coalition, at a time when access to university is such a general concern. Not a good

Here’s a thing. What’s happened to Andy Burnham? The affable scouser’s leadership manifesto had an appealing tone: the red background enlivened by a blue streak on law and order, aspiration and tax reform. But Burnham lost the race and since then he has been matching Ed Balls for bellicosity, opposing each of Michael Gove’s education reforms out of an antediluvian tribal loyalty.  In recent weeks, Burnham has attacked cuts to the Educational Maintenance Allowance and the Building Schools for the Future fund. He’s at it again today. He will speak to the NASUWT teaching union later and he is expected to say: ‘This Tory-led Government’s education policy consists of broken