My Lords, Can I first congratulate Lord Marland on his new post. He earned great respect for his work at DECC, and I know he will do the same at BIS. I don’t think there is much dispute that Britain’s industrial base is too weak and too narrow. If that weren’t the case we probably [...]
Two of the greatest challenges in English education today are, first, not just to reduce the number of underperforming comprehensives but to eradicate them, and second, to forge a new settlement between state and private education. I put these two challenges together because they go together. It is my view, after 20 years of engagement [...]
Michael Gove’s EBacc is basically a reinvention of GCSEs, but without modules. I have no problem with this, but it is not a fundamental change to England’s education system. Academies are the big change out there. Academies are independent state schools with far greater freedom and management strength than traditional comprehensives. Their results are racing [...]
This article was originally published on the Policy Network website. Policy proposals to give England a truly world class education system for the many not just the few In 1997 New Labour promised to improve education radically, and we made reasonable progress. Academies, Teach First, Sure Start, the literacy and numeracy strategies, the City [...]
From the Evening Standard, 7 August 2012 Mossbourne Academy in Hackney symbolises the transformation of London’s schools in the past decade. The academy is on the site of Hackney Downs School, dubbed the “worst school in England” when it was closed by inspectors in 1995. Virtually no students were getting decent GCSEs, behaviour was appalling, [...]
The Kay review of long-termism largely ducked the issue of the excessive pay of directors, which appears to me one of the biggest causes of short-termism in the modern corporate world. I suspect that, as his review was for a Conservative government and his advisors included corporate big-wigs, John felt this issue was too hot to handle, which [...]
From the Financial Times Blog, 27 July 2012 John Kay’s review of “long-termism” in UK plc is elegant but short of beef. The critique enlarged my vocabulary and understanding of recent corporate disasters. “Some of those we interviewed attributed almost magical powers to ‘the market’,” writes Professor Kay. “Anthropomorphisation of ‘the market’ in phrases such as [...]
From the Financial Times, 24 July 2012 George Orwell could not have put it better. “Whilst the Department for Communities and Local Government has no apprentices at present, it wholly supports the government initiative to promote these.” So, one of the largest departments of state wholly supports the government of which it is a part [...]
The House of Lords employs nearly 500 people. Not one of them is an apprentice, and only one member of staff is under the age of 21 – according to a Parliamentary answer I have just received. How can Parliament preach apprenticeships to the nation if it has no apprentices itself? There is a highly [...]
Originally in the Independent, 7th July 2012 Michael Gove has referred to the teaching unions as a “drag on the profession”. What is your response to that? The best arguments usually win and union leaders, like others, tend to want to be on the right side of the argument. The two most radical reforms [...]