Creative Commons licensed photo courtesy of Flickr user jackhynes.
Every year for the past 27 years GCSE results have gone up and a quarter of A level passes are now at grade A. One might think this was a chance to congratulate teenagers in their achievements but conversely the better the exam results the more they [...]
Filed under: education on January 13th, 2010 | No Comments »
Creative Commons licensed photograph courtesy of Flickr user jgraham.
Even after eleven years, there’s still something a bit shocking about tuition fees. If the vice-chancellors get their way, fees will rise to at least £5000 per student per year. It’s a policy that flaunts its pragmatism on its sleeve. I still think fees defy any principled [...]
Filed under: barackobama, education, jonathanbirch, labour, religion, ukpolitics on March 17th, 2009 | No Comments »
‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.’
— Martin Luther King 28th August 1963
‘We must recognise that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical [...]
Filed under: barackobama, education, poverty, racism on March 1st, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I was saddened to see Michael Reiss step down today as the Royal Society’s Director of Education. I have been following the furore over his supposedly pro-Creationist remarks — noting the complete absence of incriminating direct quotations in any of the reports. The reality, obviously, is that Reiss is no Creationist. He thinks Creationism is [...]
Filed under: education, jonathanbirch, religion on September 16th, 2008 | No Comments »
There’s an interesting post over at Marginal Revolution (which is probably the most consistently interesting blog on the planet, so if you don’t read it, start now) about why so many US politicians are lawyers. The phenomenon is not quite as great in the UK though Tony Blair, Michael Howard and Ming Campbell were all [...]
Filed under: education, ideas, ukpolitics on January 24th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Dave on Fire is right, migration is certainly not a modern phenomenon. Humanity began in Africa (probably) and the first immigrants to these isles have been followed by many other groups who sought a new life in our rainy ‘Atlantic archipelago’ (in John Pocock’s phrase). I made it sound as if that was unimportant, and [...]
Filed under: education on February 7th, 2007 | No Comments »
The debate brought forward on the subject of Britishness, and the stomach churning article which we are directed to in the Independent on government initiatives to teach Britishness in the classroom, leaves some serious questions unanswered.
Alan Johnson proclaims that we are ”a nation built from and by people from other countries.” A new GCSE combining History [...]
Filed under: education, history on February 6th, 2007 | 4 Comments »
Proposals are being discussed by the government to raise the school leaving age from 16 to 18 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6254833.stm). 76% of this age-group are already in education, so this policy is aimed at the remainder who are entering the labour market without specific skills. While it could be seen as a push to give the UK [...]
Filed under: education on January 18th, 2007 | 5 Comments »
