In the 1936 HG Wells film, Things to Come, Theotocopulos declares: “We shall hate you more if you succeed than if you fail.” That would appear to be the attitude of some on the left to the newly opened low-cost Independent Grammar School: Durham. While the average private school’s fees are over £17,000 a year, […]
Every Prime Minister in my lifetime has vowed to make Britain more meritocratic. Some politicians, such as Nick Clegg, have gone further and said that improving social mobility is their number one priority, inviting future generations to judge them by that metric. Well, it’s probably too early to pass judgement on Clegg or the policies […]
The pronouncements that have come from Labour politicians at their annual conference this week have certainly been wide-ranging. There have been calls for the nationalisation of industries, the expropriation of shares, every teacher to be a socialist, and a general strike. One of the less eyebrow-raising policies announced during Jeremy Corbyn’s speech today was a […]
When I was canvassing for the Conservatives a few months ago a woman answered the door. Would she be voting for the Conservatives? “I am a teacher,” she replied. Her tone made it apparent that she did not feel further clarification was required. It’s no great revelation that the far left have had a dominant […]
Another day, another plea against one of the least defensible aspects of our immigration system. This time it’s Universities UK asking the Government to reverse the decision in 2012 to scrap the post-study work visa for non-EU graduates. Bear in mind that that decision was based on an entirely false idea of the system being […]
All over the world more children than ever are attending school. However, many do not acquire foundational skills in reading and mathematics. In fact, according to the UN, the majority of children in the world are still not learning these basics. One way to seriously make an impact is to bring more players into the […]
University pays. Over the course of her life, a woman will earn £250,000 more as a result of going to university compared to going straight into work; for men, the benefit is £170,000. The average graduate earned £10,000 more in 2017 than the average non-graduate. To those who are capable of securing a place, it […]
For far too long, technical education in Britain has been looked down on. The enduring and pernicious stereotype has long been that it is only suitable for those who are unable to keep up with core curriculum at GCSE level, have little chance of completing A levels and absolutely no hope of being accepted by […]
Michael Gove’s 2014 A-level reforms offered a sweeping and apparently profound solution to systematic problems. Coursework, except where absolutely vital, was consigned to history; AS levels were scrapped in favour of a single set of tests at the end of two years. The then Education Secretary said the changes would introduce greater rigour, eliminate cheating […]
Anyone who works with big sets of numbers knows how easy it is to make them tell the story you want them to tell. Most readers don’t have time to check every source or trawl through the necessary excel spreadsheets, so it can sometimes be very tempting to be selective in your use of data. […]
During the 2017 election campaign, Theresa May pledged to lift the ban on opening new grammar schools, only for the proposal to be omitted from the Queen’s speech and appearing to be shelved indefinitely. Just a few months later, Weald of Kent Grammar School opened up a new annex and arguably established the first new […]
Global education reform is having a zeitgeist moment. It’s prominence on the agendas of the G7; World Bank and World Economic Forum this year are a testament to that. The clamour about the failing state of education systems across the world and the impact poor education has on global peace and security only grows louder. […]
To extend credit to people in the knowledge that they are unlikely to repay is decried by some as predatory lending. Those suspected of engaging in this practice will face scorn from regulators and opprobrium in the media. Yet predatory is not an inaccurate sobriquet for government policy towards the funding of higher education. So […]
According to the World Bank, the true and proper economic emancipation of women would make the world $160 trillion richer. However, this eye-catching figure gets things the wrong way round, confusing cause and effect. In fact, the correct formulation is that if the world were $160 trillion richer then we would have had the economic […]
Two thirds of Britons think life in this country ain’t what it used to be; the past isn’t just a foreign country where they did things differently, it’s a place where they — we — did things better. That, at any rate, is the headline finding of a new survey conducted by the think tank […]
The full and unexpurgated version of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was only published in Britain in 1960 by Penguin Books, over three decades after it was written, in contravention of the obscenity laws of the day. It led to one of the most famous court cases in the social history of the nation. On […]
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