2014 Cabinet Reshuffle - William Hague gone

[Tunney]

What's so bad it would need to be overturned, anyway? What are you gripes?

My main gripes are these:

1) Gove is in favour of allowing people with no formal teacher training to teach kids. He's axed the training budget for classroom assistants and has allowed free schools to employ teachers with no formal teacher training. In my opinion, teachers should need to demonstrate that they meet the required standard before being allowed in the classroom.

2) Gove has funnelled money out of mainstream education budget and into his own pet projects at a time when schools are really struggling for money. Further education colleges have had their budgets slashed by £100 million in parallel with Gove spending £62 million on just nine new free schools for 16-19 year olds. Teachers have been made redundant and courses in core subjects have been dropped as a direct result of these cuts. What's worse is that the new free schools aren't open to anyone over 19. Those wanting to go back to education are left out in the cold.

3) Forcing schools to become more independent from local authorities is inefficient. All new schools have to be free schools whether it makes sense for the area or not. My mum is a head teacher at a primary school. She's now responsible for the school's website despite no-one at the school having the time and skills to maintain it. Schools are run by teachers so why not let them focus on what they're trained to do?

4) Allowing third parties to run schools is dangerous. Some will be doing it for purely philanthropic reasons but others will do it to indoctrinate kids in their ideology. It's a recipe for extremism.

 

[anything I don't mind]

I was only joking about women in politics however i still think that churchill raised a good point about every social issue under the sun, which in the last 20 years has been the case.

What always makes me laugh about the government is how they can move people around, it just shows that the people are not picked for the positions based on any kind of appropriateness or suitability, we have people going from education to environment for example. These people have no idea about education or the environment but are meant to be in charge, if it wasn't such a travesty it would be funny. They might as well put all the muppets names in to hat and pick them out at a convention, ok number 343 you are *ruffles in hat* finance minister congratulations...

As an anarchist though i am against democracy in that i think it is completely inefficient and essentially the dictatorship of the many, the other problems with democracy is the short sightedness of the politicians and the incentives around getting re-elected over doing the right thing for the country. This is why i would prefer if we let the monarchy rule over the country instead of having a democracy. End of day id prefer no government or monarchy but if we must have one id prefer a monarchy and a legion of experts to run the country, over some career politicians who are essentially liars at best.

If we must have democracy then i would prefer if we removed the right to vote for state employees and welfare recipients of any kind. The requirements to vote in my opinion, should be:

1) over 25
2) land owner
3) second generation British born
4) male or female is fine, just one vote per household (must be land owner and not apartment)
5) under pension age
6) not a state employee or directly contracted by the state
7) not a welfare recipient of any kind

 

[elmarko]

again everything that is wrong with this country on show, promoting people based on whats between their legs rather than between their ears.

I don't care if your a man or a woman all I care about as a voter and a uk citizen is whether your the best person for the job.

Sadly most of the voting public don't think this way.

They vote based on 'personality' which is why Blair did well & Miliband is pretty much universally hated. From the perspective of Cameron - if kicking out a few 'old rich men' (From the perspective of the public) gains him X amount of votes then it's worthwhile.

 

[elmarko]

As an anarchist though i am against democracy in that i think it is completely inefficient and essentially the dictatorship of the many, the other problems with democracy is the short sightedness of the politicians and the incentives around getting re-elected over doing the right thing for the country. This is why i would prefer if we let the monarchy rule over the country instead of having a democracy. End of day id prefer no government or monarchy but if we must have one id prefer a monarchy and a legion of experts to run the country, over some career politicians who are essentially liars at best.

You are not an anarchist.

Preferring an utterly unaccountable & unelected leadership over an admittedly flawed but partly accountable system doesn't strike me as being within the frame of an anarchist.

Both democracy & a monarchy would be untenable solutions for an anarchist (even more so the latter).

The requirements to vote in my opinion, should be:

1) over 25
2) land owner
3) second generation British born
4) male or female is fine, just one vote per household (must be land owner and not apartment)
5) under pension age
6) not a state employee or directly contracted by the state
7) not a welfare recipient of any kind

Personally, I'd deny idiots the vote.

 

[RDM]

What's going to change? Where's the groundswell of opinion within the main political parties that his changes need to be overturned? What's so bad it would need to be overturned, anyway? What are you gripes?

Nothing is going to change, Labour have already said they will stick by the main changes. Free schools will probably get less attention but there will be more acadamies, the changes to league tables going from A-C to value added will stay, the focus on exams rather than coursework will stay, hopefully the renewed focus on Computing rather than ICT will stay, you will see more acadamies and more teacher training will move from PGCE to School Direct (which the schools really like as they get to interview their trainees).

Contrary to popular belief schools can still put students in for multiple attempts at the exams, however only the first one counts towards league tables now so no more putting them in time after time until they get the C you need for your league tables.

 

[anything I don't mind]

You are not an anarchist.

Preferring an utterly unaccountable & unelected leadership over an admittedly flawed but partly accountable system doesn't strike me as being within the frame of an anarchist.

Both democracy & a monarchy would be untenable solutions for an anarchist (even more so the latter).

I am anarcho capitalist but like the Chicago school of Milton Friedman fame, realisticly i can't see the state collapsing in the very near future, so it is just a matter of what would be better if we must have... the state or if we must have democracy. In that sense, i would prefer a monarchy because they think long term and have incentives to improve the country for the sake of the people and not just lies for the sake of the next election. Of course you can have bad kings but i think in this day and age a monarchy would struggle to be authoritarian a lot more than a democractic government. The current governments everywhere thinks it can do what it wants and then just shrug it shoulders and say you voted for us. The monarchy would no be voted and would be held accountable for its actions. The politicians they wreck the country, invade other countries, then they get a nice sweet deal in the private sector on their way out and write some books and put their feet up.

 

[RDM]

That was my point. People are saying they're happy he's gone... but nothing meaningful will change, given the people in Westminster (by and large) don't hate what Gove did - it's obvious when Tristram Hunt is in interviews and is asked about what he'd change and there's just waffle.

A fair few teachers dont hate what he has done either, it just isnt good to say it in the staff room!

The pace of change has been difficult, but a lot of the changes were fairly necessary.

 

[anything I don't mind]

Education started out as private, there was no state education before that, it was the state that took over the education industry and standardised the syllabus as a result. Originally it was only boys going to school because the parents usually could only afford to send one child to school and as the man was expected to be the bread winner in those days it made more sense to educate the boys. The girls from rich families often had education even though they did not go on too work. When the state created nationalised education they designed off the german education system which was specifically set up to create obedient factory workers. It was not designed to facilitate social mobility at the time. Although the social mobility has improved, we still have a lot of those same aspects in our modern education system except now the syllabus is designed specifically for girls at the expense of boys.

 

[RDM]

That's the good teachers, right? It's the bad ones who don't like him .

It would be unprofessional of me to make any sort of judgement considering how new to the career I am.

I can see why some teachers would be upset after being told their subject is no longer fit for purpose (ICT) as it will reflect fairly badly on them as teachers of it. Also the change from ICT to computing has been very difficult as effectively you are going from a fairly generalist subject to a very specialist one. But I can also see the necessity of it.

 

[RDM]

Although the social mobility has improved, we still have a lot of those same aspects in our modern education system except now the syllabus is designed specifically for girls at the expense of boys.

Are you education qualifications as good as your science ones?

 

[Ilikeitblackplease]

Good dislike his views.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

except now the syllabus is designed specifically for girls at the expense of boys.

Your really are something special. I normally don't resort to ad hominem fallacies but with you I can't help it. I just hope you're trolling.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

What's going to change? Where's the groundswell of opinion within the main political parties that his changes need to be overturned? What's so bad it would need to be overturned, anyway? What are you gripes?

It's not necessarily the reforms that are the problem - it's the speed of reform and lack of consultation/engagement with the teaching profession that's the main issue.

People are more receptive to change if the change is explained to them properly and they are engaged correctly, rather that being forced to do something "becuase I said so". ANy decent business knows this, a point escaping the DfE and especially Gove.

Dictation != consltation.

 

[Tunney]

Unqualified teachers can be rubbish, but then unqualified teachers can be excellent. Qualified teachers can be rubbish, but then qualified teachers can be excellent. It works in private education, no? Why can't the management of schools decide if someone's suitable/capable?

Having a teaching qualification demonstrates a minimum standard of both dedication and ability. Assessment over several years is going to beat any possible assessment at an interview.

Requiring a formal teaching qualification reduces the chances of a lazy, incompetent or desperate management from employing someone unsuitable.

On the face of it, that sounds lame, but has it led to people not being able to access FE when over 19? Was there significant wastage in FE colleges? Etc. I remember going to an FE college in 2008ish and having to pay (a princely sum!) to go back and basically redo level three - there were significant barriers to entry there, so that's not necessarily a Gove 'thing'.

Yes, it has. I can't speak for other boroughs but there are now no FE colleges in Newham offering A-levels to those over 19. Students halfway through can't even finish their course! This is not a barrier - it's a complete road block.

I'd question the idea that local authorities governing everything would be more efficient. And the website issue doesn't seem particularly significant - I mean, surely there's IT staff, or other staff, or a governor, or they could pay someone not a huge amount to sort one out, etc? Given a school website can be very basic, and there's stuff like Joomla available, does it just require a computer literate person to have a crack? Or schools could work together. Etc.

Do you really think that every primary school has a dedicated IT worker? How much is 'not a huge amount'? How does someone who isn't technically literate choose the best person for the job? Schools could and should work together - that's the local authority's job!

Like faith schools, or private schools, which predate Gove by quite a while?

So making a bad situation worse is a good thing? Private schools don't use public money. The real problem is with private organisations using public money to push their own agenda.

 

[RDM]

Having a teaching qualification demonstrates a minimum standard of both dedication and ability. Assessment over several years is going to beat any possible assessment at an interview.

Requiring a formal teaching qualification reduces the chances of a lazy, incompetent or desperate management from employing someone unsuitable.

For secondary a PGCE is a one year course so assessment isn't over several years. It is also more an endurance test than a test of dedication and ability

Most schools still generally require QTS even if they don't legally have to (academies don't legally have to have QTS either).