Education Education Education

It does not matter how many times the government repeat the mantra. Entering our twelfth year of suffering under the stewardship of this incompetent bunch euphemistically called a Labour Government; eleven years of managing an educational system and they are still trying to meet their target of 30% of 16 year-olds leaving school with five decent grades, including key subjects English and maths.

Allow me to digress slightly. Yesterday I received a telephone call from a young lady asking if she could speak to David Phillips. When I replied in the negative and pointed out theres no 'L' in my name, the response was along the lines of Oh so your name is Noel and not David. This conversation continued along similar lines where she asked to speak to David Philps, Phelps, etc, etc. Finally, running out of patience, I mildly castigated her and pointed out that if she had the courtesy to address me correctly I would be only too happy to talk to her. At which point I was accused of being rude and advised that, quote, "I am only trying to read what is on my screen" (my emphasis). In exasperation, I finally had to inform her that when she had learned to read properly, perhaps she might like to call me back.

To revert to the real subject of this post, education, the Daily Telegraph reports that teachers are being told to focus on 'middling' pupils at the expense of the 'bright' and the 'dim' as this course of action can easily improve a school's league table position and obviously meet the government's 30% target.

When will this Labour Government (an oxymoron surely) realise that an educational system that drags the brightest down to the level of the dimmest does not work! After all, they only need to read their history books and refer to Tony Crossland to see the disastrous results of the last effort at educational 'engineering'.