Archive for September, 2008
Seems Even the Examined Life Is Not Worth Living
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 09/09/2008
During the last ten years, the Westminster Government has permitted and then forbidden schoolchildren to use calculators in examinations no fewer than seven times.
If one single statistic could be said to reveal just how ill-equipped government is to make detailed decisions about such educational matters, this statistic surely is it.
It was cited by the chief executive of Europe’s largest assessment agency, Cambridge Assessment, to illustrate government’s incompetence in its domain.
He is also reported to have said that growing political interference in the assessment process has so served to discredit the GCSE qualification in the eyes of the public that they are increasingly turning to new, more reliable modes of assessment, such as the International Baccalaureate, that have escaped governmental interference … so far.
Reform at the mercy of government
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 04/09/2008
In an article for The Fraser Institute, we argue the lessons for Canada from the NHS reform programme are less that competition in health care has failed, but rather that market-based health care reforms in the UK have been crippled by the government’s unwillingness to stop directing the service from the centre. The reform programme as a whole has been ‘a botched job driven by political imperative, constant reconfiguration, and central diktat’.
Accord May Have Come Into Being, But Is Still Lacking in Reality Nonetheless
Posted by Nick Cowen in Social Cohesion on 02/09/2008
Yesterday was the first day of the month in which children return to school after the summer holidays. (Cue for cheers or boos depending on age.)
Along with the start of the new school year, yesterday also saw the launch of a new anti-faith school initiative.
Named the Accord Coalition, what distinguishes this new organisation from all other lobby groups campaigning for the same end is that its membership includes several prominent religious figures and groups. It is not just the usual group of virulently anti-religious suspects such as Polly Toynbee, Phillip Pullman and A.C.Grayling, although all of these belong to it.
Budget and the Beast
Posted by David Conway in European Union on 01/09/2008
Chris Heaton-Harris, Conservative MEP and member of the Audit Committee of the European Parliament, has published a ‘rough guide to the EU budget’. The brief guide tries to make sense of the draft budgets for both the European Commission and European Parliament in 2009 and queries how MEPs can be expected to ‘tame the beast’, writes Laura Kelleher.