Slightly confused:
Education might be vital to politicians – but are politicians vital to
education? Or, to put it another way, why do we voters allow ministers
to constantly impose new and even more ludicrous and untested methods
of what passes for "learning" on at least 12 years of children’s lives
when so much of what government has instigated for decades smacks so
strongly of failure?
Indeed, absolutely.
Abolish state controlled education? Why not? Half of pupils emerge with
few or no GCSEs; academic young people talk of the joy of learning
being knocked out of them by the system; apprenticeships are so
unimaginative the drop out rate is chronic and employers complain that
they are hiring the illiterate – and, apparently, we have never been
richer yet more unhappy.
Quite, the system we’ve got obviously isn’t good enough.
Let the tax payers foot the bills but devise a better more flexible,
more customised way of providing learning to suit the individual child
(and one that doesn’t replicate the private sector).
Why not replicate the private sector? Why not even make it all private sector. That’s the bit that confuses me. We have already two educational systems, the public and the private. That private one seems to work better. Why aren’t we holding that up as a blueprint?
Anyway, there already is a more flexible, more customised, method available. Simply issue education vouchers and let parents decide where to spend them. It meets all of the requirements, except that last of it not being like the private sector.
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