Civitas Blog

Success, that is, if success is to be measured by the enlargement of EU membership, writes Edmund van der Byl-Knoefel. In these narrow terms, the EU has been an unqualified hit: the concept of a European Union began in 1958 with six members; it now has twenty-seven. However, the former President of the European Parliament, MEP Josep Borrell, does not necessarily agree, claiming, “we (the EU) are suffering from a crisis of heterogeneity and growth”.

There is a bizarre story in today’s Times. Apparently, Education Secretary Ed Balls will announce today that all secondary schools must include compulsory lessons in ‘happiness, well-being and good manners’.

They are being introduced reportedly on the basis of the apparent improvement in behaviour and academic performance of primary pupils who had received such lessons as part of an extensive pilot programme named ‘Seal’ which stands for ‘Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning’.

continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.

Weak reading lies at the heart of the educational apartheid between the advantaged and disadvantaged, and England’s low social mobility. The inability to read properly is the single greatest handicap to progress both in school and adult life.

As of this week, all children in primary schools will be taught to read using 'first and fast' synthetic phonics. This means that children's first experience in school of learning to read will be to learn 44 letter sounds which they will be taught to blend together - or 'synthesise' - to form words.

Background: despite additional billions invested in education, a significant achievement gap between rich and poor persists. [p2] At the heart of this lie poor reading skills:

• Original 'flagship' National Literacy Strategy has failed to drive up reading standards

• Government policy was based on flawed methods touted for decades by 'trendy' academics

This government’s move to systematic synthetic phonics in the classroom brings new hope that children of all backgrounds will be taught to read properly, according to a report by the independent think-tank Civitas.

Throughout the half-century that Britain has been debating further integration into Europe, our association with America has proved a crucial point of debate. With the history of this ‘special relationship’ spanning back decades and indeed predating even the earliest roots of the EU, many commentators have been reluctant to see closeness between British Prime Ministers and the US Presidency threatened by ever-closer union with Europe. However, certain international crises that have emerged in recent decades have led many to question the prudence of too-close alliance with our American peers, writes Pippa Knott.

No society can flourish in the absence of its enjoying a considerable degree of cohesion among its members.

In determining how much cohesion a society enjoys, few factors play a more decisive role than do the policies it adopts towards two decisive matters. These are immigration and education.

continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.

One of Gordon Brown’s first moves as Prime Minister was to stir that alphabet soup of government departments. The DfES* was split up, a few bits of the DTI** got mixed in and we ended up with the DCSF*** and DIUS****. One might imagine this was little more than an excuse to get some fresh headed paper, stick a new logo on the departments' biros and create some new junior ministerial posts to reward the government’s most outspoken parliamentary supporters.

In honesty, Sir Derek Wanless’ ‘review of NHS funding and performance’, released on Tuesday by the King’s Fund, tells us little we didn’t know already: that while there may have been ‘some clear and notable improvements’, the NHS, overall, is not getting much bang for its buck. ‘The NHS has failed to generate the relatively modest improvements in unit cost productivity that might have been expected’, concludes Wanless – much the same as that of previous King’s Fund publications, that of the QQUIP team at the Health Foundation, that of Reform, and even that of a tome by the author of this blog.

When questioned on Sunday AM yesterday on the subject of the report by Sir Derek Wanless , released last week by the King’s Fund, on how effectively the NHS had spent its money the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, referred to a recent study by the Commonwealth Fund:

“There was a recent study by the Commonwealth Fund which is the independent organisation in America that compared six health services in the developed world - Canada, Australia, US, Germany and New Zealand and ourselves. We came out top. We came out top on efficiency. We came out top on quality. We came out top on fairness, on equity.”

Although we rightly worry about the potentially divisive effects of faith schools, on-campus extremism, and the hateful intolerance that some Muslims show former co-religionists who leave Islam, in actuality the battle for social cohesion will be lost or won not so much by what takes place in Britain than by what happens in the Middle East.

For it has been there where the Islamist virus currently plaguing the world was first spawned, and it has been this aggressive, intolerant and supremacist ideology that ultimately fuels all demands and forms of activity by Muslims that so currently imperil social cohesion at home.

continued on the Centre for SocialCohesion blog.

Hugo Chavez certainly knows how to shore up his socialist consensus in Venezuela for the long term: ban all schools from teaching anything else. He has already ensured that college level students won’t be able to study medicine without first pouring through Marx’s Das Kapital and some of Fidel Castro’s speeches. But his tactics for co-opting private schools into his preferred ideology could really do with some refining. After all, his aggressive stance is attracting a lot of bad press. If he had only studied New Labour tactics, he could have learnt how to bring many private schools to their knees without anyone noticing!

The Lib Dems have today proposed scrapping PCTs and SHAs and replacing them with elected local health boards, that would also be allowed to raise extra money for local services through a local income tax. The NHS must be shuddering at the prospect of yet more organisation. On the plus side, it would undoubtedly be a step towards solving the well-documented accountability issues currently besetting PCTs: dissatisfied patients would at least be able to kick out commissioners who aren’t providing a decent local service. But it is unlikely to be a satisfactory response to the NHS’ woes.

'Pressure to reform tests’ runs the headline on the front of today’s Times Education Supplement (TES). The article reports that newly published evidence presented to the House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee shows that criticism of current testing arrangements in schools have reached a climax. The TES reveals that out of the 52 submissions to the Committee, just one depicted today’s testing regime favourably. Needless to say, that one submission came from the old DfES.

The HSJ runs a headline article on Lord Darzi’s series of citizens’ juries, the first of which was held last week and attended by both the PM, Gordon Brown, and Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary. On the subject of these consultations, the enlightened Mr. Johnson said: “our principle aim is to get away from this view that the NHS is Whitehall – and DH-led – we want to get away from this top-down approach”. And then: “we want to create a healthcare system that is completely focused on patient care and moves away from structural change”. About time, one might think.

But then comes the shocking story narrated to a colleague of the consultant blogger, Dr Ray, who managed to attend this first ‘citizens’ jury’. Turns out it’s not a ‘citizens’ jury’ at all, more of a show trial for the NHS staged by the government. Afraid of something coming up you don’t like, what better solution than to hand-pick the audience and pay the ‘jury’ to say what you want to hear? One can only hope that Lord Darzi, a new-comer to the shady world of NHS politics, didn’t know this was happening.

‘Every citizen who answer[s] the call of the country - policemen and women, our security and emergency services, our health services - all le[ave] their mark on this island's story by keeping us safe. They are the pride of Britain.

‘Just as our armed services with bravery and heroism every single day also make us proud. We mourn those who have been lost and we honour all those who in distant places of danger give so much to our country.’

So spoke Gordon Brown yesterday at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth.

In response to the patriotic sentiments here expressed, one feels tempted to respond:

continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.

Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families has just announced that the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority will be overhauled into an independent watchdog equivalent to the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England or the Food Standards Agency. This rather raises the question of what exactly the QCA is at the moment, considering that it is barely ever mentioned by ministers without the accompanying authoritative claim that it is an independent ‘guardian of standards’, and that an even more independent international panel has described the resulting exam system as one of the most tightly regulated in the world. Just how much more independent can you get? Apparently, much more.

The ambiguous messages coming out of the government on the NHS have the potential to be highly damaging. Happily munching my cereal yesterday morning, the Today programme introduced a discussion with the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, and I confess my initial reaction was, oh no, ‘here we go again’. But, while there was the compulsory dose of ministerial squirming, I actually came away reasonably optimistic that the reforms in the NHS weren’t going to be rolled back after all. Even the reverse?!

In August we published a report questioning the value of higher national achievement at A-level. We were interested in examining whether yet another year of rising grades were a useful indicator of achievement and in particular, how these record grades were being obtained. One of the main ways that A-level grades have been increased has been through the introduction of the AS-level re-takes. This in itself tells us that the rise in A-level grades is not straightforwardly down to greater knowledge and skills amongst A-level students.