Posts Tagged inspection
Ineffective efficiency
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Education on 03/04/2009
At the end of last year Civitas published a book on the state of Ofsted’s school inspections; drawing on a range of – to use that technocrat term – ‘stakeholders’’ views, it includes those of a head, a parent and an inspector. One thing iss very clear: the time and resources allocated to school inspections are inadequate. Perhaps surprising to some that any current quango is under-funded, budget inspections are considered to be at the heart of perniciously superficial inspections and unsatisfactorily trained inspectors. Let’s be clear: Ofsted’s very premise is highly flawed and the inspectorate has never been regarded as a good model by educationalists. Nevertheless, the bid to shave off 30 per cent of its budget has exacerbated some of Ofsted’s key weaknesses to the point of rendering it difficult for even its staunchest supporters to justify.
La Mala educación
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education, Foreign Affairs on 20/09/2007
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!