Wednesday, February 14, 2007
"Britain" is failing its children?
That's what the opinion pieces and the general thrust of op-eds peddled as "news" say in the Independent this morning. Personally, I think it's more likely a large number of Britain's parents failing their children, but personal responsibility is not fashionable at the Indy. Better to blame the nation for not being sufficeint socialist enough. Apparently inequality is terribly high here. That's inequality of outcome you understand, not inequality per se.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
still waiting for this "report" to appear on the unicef website.
Probably failing their children because both parents having to go to work to pay the the ot mortgage payments for the ot house prices ,I include also Thatcher for allowing school playing field's to be sold off, also when the Lotto was introduced ,each area would have a football field for the children ,oh yeh
It is a worrying sign, what will this mean to our country in the next 20-30 years? And then today's children will go on to have their kids, the cycle will continue unless the rot can be stopped. It's tragic to see that parents don't know how to be parents. I think it's good role models that are lacking, I don't see what govt can do.
From my own experience, it does have a lot to do with the parents not being sufficiently supportive of the school. Having said that, recruitment of good teachers is very hard in some subjects, because of the pay not being competitive for people with certain qualifications.
I have written a little about my opinions on education on my own blog (which may even now be shamelessly linked from this post) although nothing like a whole post about it. It's the only issue on which I am to the left, pretty much, primarily because it seems to me that the whole structure of conservatism rests on the assumption that nearly everyone has a chance. The truth of that assumption is significantly enhanced when a good education is provided.
The series of educational reforms starting with the National Curriculum, through GCSEs (both Tory 'achievements') and gutting the A Levels, has been a dismal failure, in terms of achieving its goals. It also looks increasingly to me like publishing results is merely a device to prop yearly claims of improvement whilst, in fact, things are not improving. meanwhile, the amount of paperwork that teachers have to provide, much of which is pointless in actual effect, is much higher now than it was.
Dizzy & Co, most sensible comments I have seen on this issue today.
Its parental responsibility which is the problem and the solution.
Until we realise that responsibility for our own children's health and welfare belongs with us, then how can we expect them to accept responsibility for their actions?
This stupid "it's Maggie Thatcher's fault or the present government have to take all the blame" rubbish, just remind who elects the government in this country.
We get what we vote for, and if we can't be bothered to even do that then that is a serious indictment of the UK today.
It is difficult to do anything about crappy parents, really. You can mitigate it with better teachers teaching smaller classes, but that'd expensive (the corrolary being that if people were better parents on average, they'd pay less tax, on average). If there was some magic bullet to make parents more supportive of school efforts and exert more parental control over their kids' behaviour, that'd be great, but it looks to me like improving those issues will take even longer than it would to recruit more teachers from amongst a better pool of candidates and build enough facilities to allow for smaller classes.
Of course there is the alternative take on this, that UK kids have more freedom. Many people think this has gone too far, but it remains to be proven that this is such an unmitigated disaster, for the children or for the adults they will become. e.g. does a boy who smokes early become a more independent-thinking soldier? does a girl who has a baby "early" (not early by biological standards) and then goes to college have a more successful career than a woman discounted at work because she takes maternity leave?
Post a Comment