Category Archives: education

Given the shocking mess that Labour made of our Education system, one would think they are in no position to carp about efforts being made by this Coalition government to try and improve things.  But of course that is not the case, Labour has no shame. The BBC has been pushing the Labour line on the news that more “Free Schools” are opening this morning and I heard one BBC correspondent talk about the “waste” that accompanied some of these new Free Schools. (Bradford was singled out) Funny how the BBC NEVER talks about the enormous waste that characterises the bloated State sector schools. It never talks of the staggering inefficiencies, the inept teaching, the lack of discipline or indeed the grotesque social engineering that Labour helped build up within our Schools. Just shameless, BBC.

Amazing amount of favourable publicity afforded to the Sutton Trust’s latest report on the Today programme this morning. Also used as an opportunity to mock Michael Gove. Yet isn’t the Sutton Trust a reliably left wing organisation? Why DOES the BBC get so excited about it’s press releases? Is it because any opportunity to somehow “do down” Gove is grabbed with relish? If our children really ARE lagging so far behind overseas students, perhaps the BBC might choose to square that with their adulation of the teaching “profession” and the NUT? Maybe this is evidence we need to sack poor teachers? Oddly, the BBC never goes down that line, for some reason.

During the Labour years,our universities were turned into third rate academic factories as more and more young people were lured into participating in the chase for next to useless degrees. Sensibly, the Coalition has tried to tackle this problem and this was always going to provoke the ire of the BBC. On Today, 7.50am  the BBC does everything possible to get the head of UCAS to criticise government policy. The BBC idea is that there should be no cap to the numbers going to Uni, The UCAS lady does very well by maintaining her professional neutrality – something the rancid BBC could learn to do rather better.

Any attempt by Cameron to tackle the relentless abuse of the UK education system by those claiming to be foreign students coming from outside the EU (From Pakistan, for example) was always going to annoy the BBC. So on Today, at 8.35am on comes the oleaginous Keith Vaz to tell us about the “enormous damage” any attempt to staunch th is unwelcome and dangerous inward flow will have on our Universities. Naturally, there was no one to counter his claims.

Not often Ofsted comes up with anything useful but today it reveals that half a million children in England alone have been wrongly diagnosed with “special needs”. This instantly raises questions about the professionalism of some teachers and the approach of some schools. Now, this is a problem for the BBC which slavishly promotes the teaching “profession” so how to deal with it? Check out this prime-time 8.10am discussion. The BBC sets it up as if it is between someone in favour of the Ofsted view and someone against it. But, as you would expect, nothing could be further from the truth.  Jon Bangs from the NUT is introduced as if he is in favour of the report but he instantly starts wailing about how tough things are for teachers, how they need more resource and more training – unbelievable. Then, Headteacher Jo Shuter drones on about “barriers to learning” – listen to her evade Humphrys questions. Her arrogance and liberal leanings are obvious and there is NO voice to counter her.

The BBC likes to play along with the nonsense that the “A” level has not been dumbed down. So today as even more students get Grade “A” the BBC changes the narrative to being one about the availability of university places. Naturally Labour play along with this and and thus the context of the debate changes in a way that favours the radical egalitarians. Let’s ignore the emasculation of what was once a gold standard education qualification and instead have a faux debate about how many more can be funnelled into University.