I refer readers to this story.
Two-thirds of teachers surveyed for the study had said they did not think coursework was valid and reliable.
I then refer readers to the British Library’s Newspaper Collection at Colindale and an edition of the Sunday People newspaper in August 1988 in which the Minister informed the then Secretary of State for Education (one Kenneth Baker) in person that GCSE coursework was a recipe for cheating.
The then Secretary of State for Education told the Minister he was chatting shit and should fuck right off.
Or words to that effect.
The day before, the Minister had told the same thing to the then Shadow Education Secretary (one ‘Jack’ Straw) and the then Shadow Education Minister (the late Derek Fatchett).
They listened attentively, took a lot of notes, said they heard what I was saying and appreciated the gravity of the situation, which should not be allowed to persist…
… and then went away and did precisely fuck all about it.
And Mr. Tony Blair wonders why people are cynical about politicians.
I’m not saying that politicians are great, but if you look at what UK plc has to offer, why not let little Jimmy’s estranged parents spend what little spare time they have desperately helping him cheat on his geography project by faking pie charts and sticking colourful little bits of paper to other colourful bits of paper?
Chances are he’ll end up firmly embedded in our world-renown service sector economy, rewarded with a job that he hates. This job will require only the merest hint of competence, and the predominant measure of success will be how little service he is able to get away with offering to his employer’s customers.
He will spend his working life fretting that his almost complete lack of tangible skills and talent may one day be discovered, like his parents’ efforts in his geography coursework. This feeling will intensify when, in time, he stumbles into a management position and perpetuates the whole vile cycle by interviewing potential applicants for the non-job that he once hated, but to which he has slowly grown numb.
I’m not too fussed about coursework. If you take away coursework, people will still cheat to gain a perceived advantage: from paying for a school to selecting a school which does easier subjects to a school that picks out the easier exam boards to a school that deals with exam preparation rather than education. But where does doing better at a piece of coursework really get anyone?
I’d love everyone to be educated to the same standard and receive the same opportunities, but that’s not what the vast majority of parents want – they want their kid to ride the curve, and are happy to put superficial achievement (8 Grade A*s, but he can’t tie his shoes) above a challenging education that ranges beyond the curriculum.
Politicians know that people prefer a positive change in the name of their crap job to a pay rise, and this is, sadly, no different.
That’s a brilliant comment and absolutely spot on.
Britain is now a country which has an absolute contempt for skill. This contempt has come about in my opinion as a result of the Thatcher administration’s decision to favour the tertiary sector (financial services) above both the primary (agricultural) and secondary (industrial) sectors, in which Britain led the world for centuries. This favouritism has devastated and eradicated everything that once made Britain great.
In the tertiary sector, Britain’s pretty good but will always be behind Japan and the US and will be overtaken soon by others. Why?
Because it’s anus-rapingly easy.
Any stupid fucking cunt can do it. In order to get the opportunity to do what any stupid fucking cunt can do, you just have to have been to the right school, have sucked the right cock, bribed the right people, shelled out the right readies and been born into the right sort of family.
In the “old days”, consequently, education really meant education. You could learn a skill or a trade. There was room for all sorts of people to do all sorts of things. And they went to school to get a rounded education, whatever they ended up doing. This might seem a rose-tinted view, but think about it. British people used to invent things, make things, design things, engineer things, create things, BUILD THINGS. Now all the whole country is good for is shuffling papers, building precisely nothing. We’ve pissed on our chips.
The net result is that schools will simply continue to be all about kids not getting educated, learning nothing, passing exams and getting those of their parents that are the richest or pushiest to help them pass exams so they can do a fuck-awful job, badly.
For ever.
Let’s just all commit fucking suicide. Now. Come on.