Panorama, what is it for?
The one about teachers being unsackable. Melanie Phillips has written about this state of affairs here.
“Just imagine the outcry ” she says “if incompetent doctors weren’t struck off but were moved to another hospital, thus exposing yet more patients to dangerous treatment.”
Or if paedopriests were shunted away to other child-rich parishes.
Oh wait. Shocking innit.
Seriously, schools might be a shambles, state education may be all over the place, the teaching profession is probably in meltdown, but Panorama certainly didn’t add anything constructive to the mix.
The number of people who declined to be interviewed outnumbered those who agreed. Panorama pressed ahead regardless, making do with the oddbods they were left with.
The presenter styles herself on the appearance, but not the intellect, of Vanessa Feltz. The camera lingered on her expression while she cocked her head from side to side attentively whilst yet another shocking revelation was revalated.
Chris Woodhead suffers from motor neurone disease and is now in wheelchair. Pity he couldn’t have given Samantha wassaname and Jeremy Vine the day off and produced and presented the whole programme himself.
Now to Today. Charles Moore has decided, now that Jonathan Ross has gone, to pay his licence fee. “In the old days,” someone said, “icons like Sir Robin Day were paid a pittance, and they didn’t complain.” “They didn’t have all the competition from ITV then” said someone else. “It’s the talent. If you want talent, you have to pay the going rate.” It seems that the BBC does pay some of its employees rather handsomely. But where oh where is the talent?
You people are mad.
Don’t you know that BRITISH EDUCATION is the envy of the world!!!
Just like the NHS, the BBC, British roads, petrol prices, the England football team, etc.
If you don’t get this then you must immediately start listening to the BBC for the truth.
Jack,
Nice one !
I hate banging on about Gambia, but your average 8-year old there has a better grasp of english than your average British 15-year old. And that is on top of speaking at least one tribal language. And all of this with very few facilities in the schools. I heard someone on the BBC today complaining about some British schools having “peeling wallpaper”. Poor diddums !
grant — yes. I watch NDTV (the India news channel) because it gives me pleasure to hear people speaking such good English — and about four other Indian languages effortlessly.
Often in the same sound bite.
Jack,
I have never seen NDTV but if you ever get a chance look at Mauritius Broadcasting Company, especially MBC 3. Everything the BBC should be.
Last time I was in Gambia my 9-year old niece asked ” What does obfuscate mean ?” Not only could she pronounce it, she could spell it. After rushing for the dictionary, I was able to tell her ” It is what the BBC do “.
grant — I assume you don’t get SKY (NDTV is channel 511) and they have in Barkha Dutt a female anchor who could easily be the best news show host/presenter on any UK channel, if she chose.
She does get every opinion into her shows.
Indians have their built in prejudices of course.
Ha ha. good BBC gag! I don’t think I can get Mauritius on Sky.
Jack,
Alas I don’t have satellite TV in the UK, but we do in our flat in Gambia where we can get 10 channels including MBC , but, thankfully not the BBC.
When you look at many other countries “National Broadcasters” and commercial channels , it really shows you how third -rate the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are.
Even in Gambia, one of the poorest countries in the world, the National Broadcaster is better than the BBC. But do the Beeboids ever watch any of these channels ?
You just have to watch the advertisments on TV to see how childish “grown ups” are. I think the programme “Friends” sums up the intelect now, 30 year olds acting like infants.
Yes, more BBC reporting double-think.
If it’s a banker who gets paid the “going rate”, to the Beeboids he’s useless, vastly overpaid, and should sod off to Shanghai if he doesn’t like it here. BUT if it’s a public sector deadweight or a piece of BBC “talent” then by jingo he HAS to be paid the market rate as these people are hard to attract.
John,
But a banker can probably get a good job in Shanghai . A Beeboid on the other hand ………
I linked to this article on the other BBC thread, Boated and Biased, but I’ll put it here too, especially as it’s entitled “The BBC Has Forgotten What it is For.”
Justin Webb is a prime example of a Beeboid whose pay far outstrips his talent.
Gillian reynolds doesn’t like Matt Frei much either.
She wrote this about “Americana”:
” Why would I like to murder this programme? It’s because it manages to be cute and condescending at the same time. Frei ogles the microphone as if it were the judge and he were a Miss World contender. The content is snippety enough to engage, seldom deep enough to challenge.”
Just thought you’d like to know as he’s one of your favourires isn’t he? 😀
Teaching and racism in the same story. I wonder how or if the BBC will cover the verdict. They have previously covered the claim without the juicy race insults
Teacher poisoned by pupil after calling her a ‘white prostitute’ has compensation claim denied
The BBC is usually pro teacher rights especially if the teacher is a black woman. The gist of the judgement seems to be that if you insult your pupils they have the right to poison you.
Is this the start of a pattern following the case of malicious damage to property excused if politically correct?
‘Is this the start of a pattern following the case of malicious damage to property excused if politically correct?’
There does seem to be a trend.
Maybe one that the national broadcaster might care to look into if it can tear itself away from pet narrative enhancing.
Mind you, as an ardent supporter, if not promoter, its circumspection may be explained.
Robin Day, of course, was first employed by ITN.
What percentage of teachers are incompetent?
How do you judge?
What will be the average class size if they are removed and there are simply not enough competent teachers to replace them?
Will the Min. of Educ close schools if more than a certain percentage of teachers fail the test?
If there were 10% incompetent, that would increase class sizes from say 30 to 33. I would far rather have children taught by competent teachers in slightly larger classes than face the serious risk of losing entire years by being stuck with bad teachers.
And the persistence of a minority of unsackable bad teachers has a bad effect on the rest of the profession – causing many to leave, why should they carry passengers, why should they have to try to undo the educational and disciplinary damage done by the incompetents ? ?