(not satire – it’s the UK today!)
Finnish students are ranked as the best educated in Europe – way ahead of the UK when it comes to educational competence.
Interestingly, Finnish pupils don’t start school until they’re 7 years old and aren’t formally tested at all until they’re 16.
The UK government meanwhile has recently announced that children in UK schools should start being formally tested from the age of 5.
Finnish schools also have one of the highest teacher/student ratios in the world – whereas the UK is ruthlessly cutting its teachers and teaching staff.
And just this week, Education Secretary Michael Gove’s close adviser Dominic Cummings argued that education, schools and teachers are mostly irrelevant because intelligence is mainly genetic.
So Gove and the coalition government clearly believe that no matter what we do, British children will always do worse at school than Finnish children because we’re just naturally thicker than those clever Finns?
Well, they can speak for themselves.
Mind you, this does of course explain why the government has been so keen to cut education funding to a minimum and turn schools into profit-making enterprises rather than places of educational excellence.
Because after all, if we can’t educate kids – we might as well make a handsome profit from them.
Does everyone realise these idiots are actually in charge of our childrens’ education?
I suggest being afraid – very afraid.
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Related articles by Tom Pride:
How The Gove Stole Summer (with apologies to Dr. Suess)
Plans to test 5-year-olds is not the coalition’s worst policy – but it’s definitely their stupidest
Gove announces plan to phase out teaching in schools
EXCLUSIVE – leaked sample questions from Michael Gove’s new GCSE Mathematics examination
Gove – children to start learning to hate school from age of 5
Gove unveils new GCSEs with emphasis on cold baths and six of the best from a well-oiled cane
Toby Young – disabled children should be excluded from schools
BBFC – Michael Gove ‘too scary’ for under-12s
New English Bacchanalian exam to focus on core subjects of drinking, swearing and fighting
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There is no uniform UK-wide education system, so why do you write as if there were?
Education in Scotland, for example, is entirely separate from that in England, and always has been. It’s separate existence is guaranteed by the Treaty and Acts of Union which created the United Kingdom from the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in the early 18th Century.
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Hmmm soooo, it’s not only Iain Duncan Smith that’s been studying German ideology….intelligence is down to genetics, eh?
That accounts for the thickness of our unelected govt. Inbreeding in the “upper classes”.
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…..
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And just this week, Education Secretary Michael Gove’s close adviser Dominic Cummings argued that education, schools and teachers are mostly irrelevant because intelligence is mainly genetic. hhhhhmmmm the Nazi’s were into genetics as well ? so Tory = Nazi :] now i understand
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holebender
i live in scotland, i have done for a long while..so what’s your point? it is my firm belief that starting school age of 7 is right, for many reasons. the prime being that the child has a greater knowledge of self.
that aside, the genetic argument for achievement stinks, it seeks to iterate, that people in high office got there because they are intelligent, and a privileged background had nothing to do with it, but in fact is the very reason people spend, vast sums of money sending their children to private schools, with lower pupil/teacher ratios, etc.
a school start @ 7, is provably better all round, much better for the child and teaching staff, the main factor being, that the child is much less anxious about who they are, rather than being super intelligent, their natural passion for learning, is turned on, and applied. thus overall academic achievements are higher, in finland than in the uk..it aint rocket science…
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Reblogged this on Gogwit's Blog and commented:
Whenever they are in a fix, why do they always fall back on the Bell Curve and Eugenics – is this a right-wing conditioned reflex – or is it in their genes? (Oops!)
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I think you’ll find that the German ideas owed a lot to British anthropologist Francis Galton. His views informed many Fabian ideas, and underpinned miscegenation laws across the planet (Indiana, springs to mind, as they enacted miscegenation law around 1912, IIRC)
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Nit picking old fruit. The Nazis (aided and abetted by the German common man) took the genetic supposition to new depths.
One would assume, in todays enlightened world, that such guff would be discredited and ditched, not usurped by some chinless, bone idle tory nitwit cos he’s too lazy to actually do his job.
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that’s because that aren’t multicultural yet
a
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I think quite alot of European kids start school at 7 which is about the right age. From my own experience I was the youngest in my year and really struggled from the start. Not all kids do well when they are pushed into education at 4 and I matured alot later by which time I was too far behind..
The whole UK education system is a complete mess and has been one continual experiment for the last 50 years. Constant tinkering has made things worse. I remember I started secondary school just a year after they brought in comprehensive schools. For me, the school and the whole system was a disaster because the quieter but capable kids who needed a bit of help and a push were ignored because the teachers were concentrating solely on the disruptive elements.
What they need to do is wipe the whole slate clean and start again. Grammar schools are by far the best in the country and are better than most private schools.
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I watched question time on this felt like thumping Matthew Parris. I don’t believe in testing 5 year olds but having seen the difference between a private school, Dragon in Oxford and then a local high school in scotland I know what I prefer. Daughter had 5 years of Latin and was at standard grade French level by 13, sports every day and homework she stayed at school to do. We were very lucky, granny paid.
Scottish system is better than English however and my daughter got unconditional offer from 5th year into university. She is bright but not gifted, she worked hard.
I agree that being able to talk and write English well instead of some type of soap opera rap is an advantage. Maths not so much, some people just haven’t the skill but basic numeracy is a must, I have never used a quadratic equation in my life but some people do.
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Is he saying we should only educate clever people, leaving the rest only capable of filling shelves or picking up rubbish? I am also a bit concerned that this is a 250 page document and we’re only looking at the juicy bit, and using this to portray the man as an idiot, he may be, but this is hardly a representative sample of his work.
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your a clever well informed individual yourself.
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