Archive for October, 2008
The next directive
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Education on 31/10/2008
‘Schools hit by more “ministerial fiddling” than any other public sector’ reports the Times Educational Supplement (TES) today. Reporting the findings of a recent parliamentary committee, the TES reveals that in just a single year, schools were on the receiving end of 135 new curriculum regulations.
It’s time to shelve the Equality Bill
Posted by James Gubb in Civil Liberty, Human Rights, Immigration, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Race and Equality on 30/10/2008
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), an organisation armed to the teeth with legal powers to protect groups that claim to be victims of oppression, recently expressed fears that the recession will not only harm ethnic minorities but also some white people.
“It is clear,” he said, “that what defines disadvantage won’t be black or brown, it will be white. And we will have to take positive action to help some white groups”.
Was he saying that we should help people when they need assistance, regardless of their colour? If so, he was spot on.
Continue at the Daily Telegraph Blog.
The other side of the QOF
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 29/10/2008
The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) – the framework that offers GPs financial incentives for meeting certain standards of care – has been accredited with improving clinical quality across general practice and cutting health inequalities for certain core diseases. But, as ever, we should be concerned with unintended consequences.
Continued at bmj.com.
Steele in Cornish School Buckles Under Parental Pressure, Mercifully
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 28/10/2008
This coming Sunday sees the start in the Cornish town of St Just of a two-day festival that takes place there each year to celebrate its fourteenth century church. As well as that church and an obligatory public house that stands next door to it, the town also boasts a small secondary school catering for several hundred local children who traditionally have been given the Monday off to join in the festivities.
When she joined it from London earlier this year, the school’s new head Jackie Steele decided that henceforth it would remain open on these Mondays.
Caught in the crossfire
Posted by Pete Quentin in Uncategorized on 27/10/2008
In an interview with The Sunday Times, the new Defence Secretary, John Hutton, has backed the creation of a European fighting force, writes Judith Gollata,
A degree of pointlessness
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Education on 24/10/2008
A variation on the usual theme, the pantomime over ‘dumbed down’ standards between ministers and critics was this week played out in higher education. In a similar vein to what the government like to condemn as the ‘annual carping’ around rising school exam grades, the rising number of first-class and 2:1 undergraduate degrees is being attributed to ‘inflation’ rather than improvement. However as in this instance it is those actually marking the papers who are the critics, it’s a little more difficult for the government to refute.