An issue caught my eye today while reading the paper about the coalitions plans to allow ministers to intervene in failing schools which are judged to be failing or behaviour is unacceptable or 'out of control'. The main point being that schools that are in special measures or have 'failed to comply to a warning' (anyone thinking of the Terminator) maybe closed if the education secretary sees fit. To add to this Michael Gove (or shall we call him Admiral Gove) has asserted that previously expelled children and children under special circumstances such as teenage mothers be taught in PRU's or pupil referral units - even encouraging new organisations (here comes the private sector once again) to run PRU's including one (get this) that recruited army vet's.
Furthermore Ofsted inspections which currently asses schools on 27 criteria will be narrowed to just 4. I understand people don't like bureaucracy but its a common trend that when you remove too many forms of legislation and governance people start to 'get away with things' - well I say people when what I really mean is people with more money. Also if you narrow the ways in which something is assessed are you delivering value for money? - If you buy a car you expect the quality to have been assured a hundred times over i.e. the breaks the lights the seatbelts for example but we can't do the same for our children. Sorry, I forgot, we can legally commodify a car.
As for these PRU's well I can see how a classroom may benefit from the removal of a bad behaved pupil in the short term, but that's just it, conservatives seem to think of things in the short term. Not only that but in terms of how economically viable something is, so in this sense if a child is deemed to be either a delinquent or troublesome they may not be worth much to the future sustainability of the economy and so they are removed and ostracised. Also running some of these by ex military professionals, while efficient in discipline lack the psychological training to deal with troubled children, who may very-well have a terrible home-life involving many forms of abuse and neglect. So for an education minister to come out and state that schools which are failing - or in other words 'have been failed' by this government or the last - will be closed is outrageous, especially considering Gove's education and privileged upbringing - he won a scholarship and believes in merit.
Shadow Education Secretary Andy Burnham summed up this approach perfectly, he warned: "Michael Gove wants to take our schools back to the 1950's. It's an elitist backward-looking vision." (The Guardian, 28/01/11, p13)
And by the way, where are the Lib Dem's on this issue, that's right NO WHERE!
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