Archive for June, 2008
When Irish ayes aren’t smiling…
Posted by David Conway in European Union on 17/06/2008
Shortly before last week’s unexpected referendum decision in Ireland, a journalist in the Scotsman explained why the Irish had chosen to reject the Lisbon Treaty despite the benefits the EU have showered on their country in recent years. He wrote:
‘The anti-EU lobby … have plastered Ireland with posters warning that the treaty will force Ireland to surrender its sovereignty on moral, military and financial matters. One conjures up the memory of Ireland’s patriot dead from the 1919-21 war of independence from Britain. “They died for your freedom. Don’t throw it all away. Vote no,” it reads.’
continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.
Elite British-style schools open to all – but only in Sweden
Posted by James Gubb in Education on 16/06/2008
Schools in the state sector in Sweden can offer the acclaimed International GCSE (IGCSE) science qualifications that have been denied to British state school pupils by the government, according to Swedish Lessons, a report published today by independent think-tank Civitas.
Sources of demotivation
Posted by Pete Quentin in Education on 13/06/2008
Education secretary Ed Balls announced this week that the lowest performing secondary schools, as judged by the number of A*-Cs at GCSE, will be closed or replaced if they do not demonstrate an imminent ‘turnaround’.
The National Challenge, as the proposed strategy for aiding these turnarounds has been termed, is modelled on the London Challenge scheme. As the Times Education Supplement comments, the London Challenge has courted controversy by advising schools to focus on those GCSE pupils who are borderline C/D – thereby on boosting the results in the crudest terms, rather than on whole-school learning. If, as the precedent of the London Challenge suggests, ‘failing’ schools will become ‘successful’ schools by bolstering the grades of a particular group of pupils through intensive exam preparation, then the reality is that for the majority of pupils these schools will remain unchanged. (Yet the government will have achieved the results it needs as evidence that it is improving schools.)
The performance monster
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 12/06/2008
The press is littered today with references to a new report on system reform in the NHS produced jointly by the Audit Commission and the Healthcare Commission – two well respected watchdogs. It concludes ‘the [competitive] reforms [in the NHS] have not yet delivered the desired change’, adding that ‘there is no evidence from our fieldwork that choice policy has so far… led to an improvement in the quality of service offered’.
Polyclinics: a force for integration or disintegration?
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 09/06/2008
Lord Darzi’s Healthcare for London report, published last July, outlined ambitious proposals to introduce a series of polyclinics in the capital. While the national Next Stage Review currently being conducted may not take the London report as a template, it is likely that polyclinics are to form a part of Lord Darzi’s conclusions once again.
But what is there likely impact? Are polyclinics the emperor’s clothes – it’s certainly a new, untried, model – or could they serve as a means to the integrated care we all crave? At a debate hosted by Civitas last week, the medical profession and leading academics had their say.
Making Hay While the Sun Didn’t Shine
Posted by David Conway in Immigration on 03/06/2008
This year’s annual Hay-on-Wye Festival has just ended. In his column in last week’s Sunday Times, Jeremy Clarkson wrote this about the annual twelve-day jamboree:
‘You might imagine that Hay is a lovely day out for all the family, a chance for children to meet all the authors they love… Of course, it’s no such thing. Mainly it’s a chance for ramblers and hippies to gather in a field and convince themselves everyone thinks the same way that they do.’
continued on the Centre for Social Cohesion blog.