Bollocks
Gove thinks he's the perfect example of how it should be and his education policies are no more then apeing his own upbringing, if all our kids turn out like him we are fecked
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Bollocks
Gove thinks he's the perfect example of how it should be and his education policies are no more then apeing his own upbringing, if all our kids turn out like him we are fecked
If every child turned out like him, we'd live in a crime-free society. Peace on earth.
They don't have to deal with it until the election, the public won't give a feck what the oppositions policy is when they have no power, they only care how the governments screwing things up for them now
Surprisingly for some I would argue for more concentration on exams from a left-wing point of view.
The problem now is that gcse results are more dependent on your school and family than they should be, because of the degree of coursework. In schools with a high teacher/pupil ratio coursework is repeatedly given back to children, with guidance on improvement, until a high score is achieved. At home pushy parents guide their kids through coursework, and even actually do the work for them. Children from poor schools and without parental help are way behind before any exams take place.
I realise schools/parents matter to learning whatever qualification system there is, the question is what system is fairest.
Yes, exactly.
A single 3 hour exam is in no way the fairest system, a mix of coursework and final exams with limited resits would be better.
Yeh but that involves a ridiculous amount of organisation and it's just too complicated.
If we're being honest, the best way to examine kids in any subject would probably be to interview them about the subject one-to-one, but it's not feasible.
It's not something i'd be introducing right now, no.
You show that you are fit to govern by not being fit for the role as an opposition?
Policies and decision are being made now, alternatives and the pressure they can cause should be on a four to five yearly cycle.
It wouldn't be so bad if it were just universities that judged results, as they can (those that want to) make allowances, but employers are hardly going to do that.
An issue the Telegraph gets wrong every single year, when some Oxbridge colleges 'give preference' to kids from poor schools. In reality they are choosing students on potential, and one who has struggled to get 3 Bs in a sink high school may well have a lot more about them than a spoon-fed private school guy with 4 As, when both are interviewed. Anyway, off-subject, sorry.
edit - you referred to interviews as well, I'm starting to worry.
On the basis of their policies/manifesto/membership there's no way they could form a coalition with the Tories. By the way the last time they did they got royally fecked over.
Labour's record on civil liberties and environmental policy versus that of the Tories did help the forming of the coalition i should have thought.
Mind you, green issues haven't faired all that well over the last several years and both governments. Cameron has fallen noticeably short in that area and i don't believe Ed mentioned it at all.
Indeed so. Even with universities admitting state pupils with slightly lower grades than their private school counterparts, students from state schools are still more likely to get first class degrees than students at the same university who attended private schools. To suggest that there is parity - when it comes to intellectual potential - between two pupils (one state educated and one privately educated) who both achieved the same grades is obviously wrong.
So you support in principle?
The opposition need to, first and foremost, not feck up. Keep the focus on the governments failures, that means not getting into policy discussions about your own ideas, just keep voicing opinion on their actions. Judging by the polls Labour are doing fine
It's clearly wrong under the current education system.
The problem is that it's not for universities to engage in social engineering, and hence they pick the students with the highest grades.
It's important also not to discriminate against private school kids as well, something some universities definitely do right now.
That is true. Labour's civil liberties record was horrible, and that was the reason I voted Lib Dem at the last election. (not that my vote matters since I live in Huddersfield and will get a Labour MP anyway). For all of the Tories' horrific economic and social policies, they at least present themselves as social libertarians.
Oh those poor kids! They'll have no choice but to take a gap year on daddys money to discover themselves
You're making the same mistake as the Telegraph, believing a higher grade must indicate a greater achievement, and a different view is social engineering.
I say again 'potential'.
Still, glad we disagree at last.
ps, fortunately most universities do not just pick on grades, in that you are misinformed.
Why would a university not discriminate on the basis of background when it comes to academic potential? It's not about social engineering, it's about selecting the best students. If I'm an admission officer and I have the choice between an AAB pupil from a craphole state school and an AAB pupil from Eton, rationally I can work out that the state pupil is probably more academically skilled than the Eton pupil.
Let's be honest - they do. UCAS forms really aren't worth anything.
You've got to look at what universities want. They want students who will have the ability to complete the course. They don't care if you go paragliding at the weekend.
I don't necessarily believe a better grade means better achievement, but as soon as you make the judgement(a fair one) that the two are not the same, you enter the realm of guess work. You have to try and decide what a B means in the context of the child, and that's an equally inaccurate process.
Universities make offers to people without ever having met them. I was given an offer from Kings' and Manchester without an interview. This is problematic.
It doesn't have to be guess work. A university is perfectly able to analyse its prior awards and say that, on average, someone with ABB from a state school achieves the same degree grade as someone with AAA from a private school. They can then factor that in to their offers.
Yeh, but it's not always that close is it? It might be AAA to BBB. What do you do then?
Also, how do you know the student from Eton isn't magnificently talented at the subject he wants to do? Just because he's predicted AAB doesn't mean he's not sensational at one subject.
If you are asking me whether i think a social worker and an investment banker should be both in a 20% bracket, the answer is no.
Fine for themselves maybe.
And yes that is the current state of politics, not that it doing so a party serves the people as well as they could, should.
Yeh but that isn't fair on the private school kid is it? What's he supposed to do except AAA?
You set quotas and allow in a certain amount of private school kids and a certain amount of state school kids based on the data analysis from prior years.
No, you interview kids and you make a decision based on that - maybe set an entrance exam like Oxford.
We need to create an exam system where the cream rises to the top, not set quotas.
The whole point is that an exam - or an interview - will measure current ability and hence the private school AAA kid will do better than the AAB state school kid, even though the data may suggest the state school pupil will on average get a better degree. You have to factor in potential ability, not just current ability.
The private school kid might well have exactly the same amount of potential.
Setting up a quota system is just such a bad idea, especially given that universities make offers to students before they've interviewed/read all the forms. It'd be pretty unfair to turn a student down because they'd filled up the private school quota.
A quota system is a bad idea, but there needs to be equality of opportunity- a state school student who gets AAB from a clearly disadvantaged position is on average more likely to have higher learning potential than an AAA student who had a lot of support from more qualified and talented teachers and should be factored into it.
I agree - but I'm merely saying that you do engage in a tough game where you end up having to work out what a grade means in context. It's just a bit impractical - the university would have to check the school's OFSTED rating and work accordingly. My experience of higher education is that the people involved would simply not be bothered to do that.
That's a good question, but it's an argument for a greater spread of awards rather than an argument against being influenced by background.
As for your repeated assertion that universities choose only on grades, you are simply wrong, if you ask around it won't be long at all before you find exceptions (I don't have to go further than my immediate family), and if there weren't then the telegraph wouldn't have a story every year to misunderstand.
I imagine it could be done through UCAS with a weighting system to the number of UCAS points that an applicant has, considering the standard of the institution where the grades were achieved do get a 'standardised academic achievement score' that students don't see.
Oh, they will be fecked over again, I have no doubt about it. I voted Lib Dem at the last election. I dont know anyone else apart from myself who would do so again if there was another election tomorrow. Everyone else I know who did would vote Labour. I wouldnt, not because "Labour got us into this mess" (I dont think they did as a matter of fact, the Tories would have been just as light on regulating the City and were not calling for a reduction in spending pre 2007) but because Labour have authoritarian instincts and do not take civil liberties seriously.
According to the David Laws book which chronicles the days when the coalition was formed, the party wanted to form a coalition with Labour. But Labour werent interested, and refused to cede any ground at all on the single biggest priority for the Lib Dems: a referendum on electoral reform. The Tories gave them that, hence they got the coalition.
The Lib Dems all then ratified that decision at the party conference. They might have been holding their noses as they did it, but they did it. Since the referendum didnt go how they Dems hoped, they probably wonder whether the whole thing was worth it. 20/20 hindsight, that. If PR is just an electoral ruse so the "Anyone But Tories" voters can keep them out in perpetuity then it is no wonder it fared so badly in the referendum. And if the Lib Dems cant make it work then they should probably stop going on about it.
Not blameless, no, but the Tories succeeded in basically laying all the blame on them and in the process destroyed their economic credibility to the public. Which is why I compared the two situations, mistakes being made by the government which are exacerbated by events elsewhere.
I thought Labour offered them more than the Tories on that front? That's what I remember reading at the time anyway. The main roadblocks to a coalition with Labour seemed to be Gordon Brown, the economic situation (which the public blamed Labour for) and the maths (very tough to get a majority in the house).
I recall that the pundits at the time were most surprised that the result was a full coalition, rather than a voting pact, I don't think they'd seen that coming at all.
Not according to Laws. They were seriously considering the Rainbow Coalition option. But Labour stone walled them in the negotiations. They would not offer the referendum. The Tories did. And apparently Brown was the one who was up for it. He was begging Clegg. It was the other leader wannabes, Balls and D Milliband I think it was, that Laws felt were blocking it. They felt they'd be better off letting someone else get in while the crisis played out. Looks like they've been vindicated on that score if the polls are to be believed, and hold up into the next election.
Gove is an exceptional minister. Exceptionally clever, and his policies are bang on the buck.
His background is similar to most conservative voters, state educated, hard-working and sensible.
Most Tory voters are hard working and sensible? What a pile of bollocks.
Who knows what proportion it is? There's a hell of a lot who are though who get completely ignored on the Caf because everyone seems to assume they're all land-owners who'd bring back the feudal system given half a chance.
Absolutely. Best minister for a long time.