CAN'T READ, WON'T READ!
Tuesday, December 4, 2007 at 09:34PM Ever since Labour came to power, its apparacheks have been droning on about how they are "delivering" world class education. How have they been getting on then?
Well, the UK has tumbled from eighth to 24th and is now "below average" in international rankings that show whether 15-year-olds have mastered basic maths. And when reading skills are tested, British teenagers fell from seventh to 17th place between 2001 and 2007. The results are from the Programme for International Student Assessment tests set by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). About 400,000 students in 57 countries took the two-hour exams, which are seen as one of the world's most accurate indicators of education standards.
Clearly Labour will be buoyed by these results as they go about the important business of de-educating our kids so they can control the future. The vermin in power are destroying education in this country and delight in it.
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Reader Comments (22)
On a somewhat related note, I was delighted to hear that Minister for Education Caitriona Ruane will soon officially anounce the abolition of the 11-plus. Can't come soon enough! :)
Yes, de-education continues with an IRA/Sinn Fein Minister.
Well David Vance, conservatives have yet again been proven correct. I remain available to take the apologies of Leftists.
You are not owed an apology Pete, the children who hav been educationally experimented on by so called 'progressives' who will never admit their failures ,do.
Colm -
Agreed. But I'm still available to receive the apologies of repentent Leftists.
Ve need ze kids in ze army, fighting ze vars of ze future; eqvip vem wiz ze new techologies ja, und ve can also be strong again. und kill ze memey und kick zem in ze azz
Zieg heil
You will be waiting a long time il Papa. Educational theorists will always find an excuse for the failures of their fashionalble ideas. They will always fail to accept that - with the exception of pupils with specific real difficulties - most children simply need good old fashioned tried and tested rote methods of learning to read and write as succesfully practised for generations. While experimentation obviously has it's place in human development , teaching children the basics isn't an area where such messing about is appropriate.
1. Abolish corporal punishment in the classroom, so that kids can get away with whatever disruption they want, with no fear of any effective discipline or punishment.
2. Abolish "banding" - force the intelligent achievers to sit alongside disruptive future warehouse workers, so that the effective learning of the intelligent is disrupted.
3. Abolish selection by ability, so that well-meaning parents are denied the option of placing their children into a secure environment of learning, and must instead place their children amongst the "Big Brother" no-hoper chavs.
4. Pay 16+ year olds to stay on in the sixth form - same deliberate motive as above: Deny the intelligent teenagers the chance to learn and excel themselves, by forcibly mixing their classes with the disruptive ones who are only there for the free hand-outs.
Conclusion: NuLabour seethes with pure jealous hatred for the individual, for achievers, and for achieving success by one's own ability. NuLabour hates education.
Why? Because the Labour party is made up of brainless "beer and sandwiches in t'e Union bar, Eeee baaah ecky thump laddie" brain-dead chavs, devoid of intelligence or original thought, and they SO hate the idea of anyone else being better than they are. Hence illiterates like John Prescott gets to be deputy PM, say no more.
Does that mean you won't be voting Labour, Tom?
So what if they kids can't spell. They can always become grocer's.
It's a trend that certainly needs to be reversed but violence ("corporal punishment") and academic selection are plainly not the way to go. One, thankfully, is well behind us and not coming back. The other is on the way out. That's progress.
JG
Do you disagree with academic selection per se or just with selection at 11? It has to happen sometime surely?
JG,
I'm with you on selection but with Tom Tyler on corporal punishment. I imagine it's too late to roll back its abolishment but IMO that move was devastating for kids and society. It's just such a damned shame that certain "teachers" were a mite too fond of the cane and the fist. They invited the inevitable backlash that led to our going to the opposite extreme.
Kids need discipline. In fact, most kids are happiest when adults impose boundaries on them; it gives them security.
Dawkins,
I take your point and see where you're coming from. I was never hit at home or at school. THAT gave me security. I knew it wouldn't happen at home and I knew that if it happened at school I could get the teacher into deep shit over it. I didn't go crazy, off the rails etc. In fact I turned out quite well, I'd like to think!
My Dad used to tell me horrific stories about students being beaten black and blue in his bording school in the West of Ireland. We are NEVER going back and rightly so in my view.
Sara,
I think 11 is far too young. Ruane may raise it to 14 instead of abolishing it. A non-decision typical of consociationalism.
If there must be selection then it should be 14 or 15 but I don't see why there should be any. We don't have it here and we get by very well.
JG,
My dad told me similar stories. I wonder if there isn't a middle ground of some sort. The present system simply isn't working.
I don't think violence is the answer. Once you allow some of it, it'll be abused by those with a penchant for it, as it was in the past.
The Daily Mail have got it wrong. The UK features in 'average' not 'below average' in maths skills and 'average' in reading skills. I wonder if this is why they removed the article.
"They can always become grocer's"
Please tell me the misplaced apostrophe was meant to illustrate your point...
Tom Tyler, you write like one of the brain-dead idiots you write about. In your rant you had me agreeing with you all the way..till you got onto your hecky-thump twaddle.
I am from what you sneeringly refer to as the beer and sandwhiches era. Lots of trade unionists like me cared about social justice back them, education..etc. Unlike the persuader middle-class twits who now claim to be `labour.' It is `these' prats that is fucking-up the education system not `us' old socialists...I support grammer schools..and competition.
DSD,
No, I shan't tell you but keep you guessing: "Is Dawkins semi-literate or not?" :0)
So the more of them who can't read the greater the number running around with vast collections of A grade A levels.
How does that work. (I need to go and lie down in a darkend room now).