Education and childcare reforms....? (61)

It's a strange question because no department exists in isolation. Frankly I consider education and childcare provision to rank alongside healthcare as the most vital duties of government. So I'd find the money somewhere else. Probably by making people and corporations who owe billions in tax actually pay what they owe.

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

Edited 24 Nov 11, 11:32 PM by Doghouse_Reilly

Other courses would be offered at "full price", ie the price that they actually cost to run, and people can take loans with interest at the rate of inflation (averaged over 3-5 years) so that the state breaks even, these would be repayable over a certain level of income, say 10% of all earnings over £20,000. This loan would be available for courses that weren't directly for the good of the nation, but would help overall, and then any course that was regarded as a waste of time would be full price with no loan (because the chance of the loan being repayed would be low).

I would also create a proper apprenticeship scheme for "trades", where people could work and learn, there would be tax breaks for companies training these people and state funding for day release so they can also gain a qualification in their chosen area.

I would bring back secondary selection accross the whole country, bring back competition, competitive sports and strong disapline. I would also allow the teaching profession to function properly without excessive state interferance, as long as they meet the attainment targets they are set the methods can vary (within reason, you couldn't for isntance beat knowledge into children, if that would even work).

I'm not particularly after making savings in education, just making it better value for money.

Childcare: I would introduce state run nursuries, every child (up to a max of 2 per family) would recieve 35-40 hours a week (or up to the amount of hours they worked weekly, the can't get more free childcare than they work) childcare vouchers (while the primary carer was employed, in a two parent family both would have to be employed to recieve the vouchers, for a single parent family the parent who looked after them would need to be employed) which could either be used at the state nursuries directly for an hour, or exchanged at privately run nursuries (or paid directly ot a nanny) for a stated value. They could also recieve additional hours, to allow them to look for employment, or better employment (say an additional 80 hours a year) to be used whenever needed, these could also be used as backup to cover other needs if required) The cost would be born by the decrease in benefit payments by getting people back to work and the long term benefit of having children who see a work ethic in their parents in getting them back to work.

Edited 25 Nov 11, 10:37 AM by Mattbucks

Should we be making saving? I'd be happy to see more spent. Although both systems are pretty fundamentally broken at the moment.

I'm broadly with Ken Robinson that the Western education systems need to be completely reconfigured around creativity skills, problem solving and away from the relentless, cram-facts-into-brain-so-one-day-you-can-rise-to-be -a-university-professor. Universities are great places but I'm not especially convinced that even half as many people need to attend them as do.

That said I'd gladly see education, to what ever level you wish to attain, enshrined as a human right and that it should be our community's (and by extension the state's) duty to provide that. We are all made richer (both financially and culturally) by having ready access to education.

As for childcare, this is very much an equality/feminism issue and providing this substantially more important than any tinkering you might want to do with higher and further education. I'd start by remodelling paternity/maternity leave on the Scandinavian/Swedish systems. State provision of nurseries would be next (or at the very least require companies/organisations over a given size to provide creching facilities).

Arbitrary distinctions are arbitrary. To say nothing of the fact that there are no universities offering degrees in Klingon. But it's a great reactionary sound bite to make up pointless degrees that don't exists and decry them.

The notion that English is worthy where Films Studies is not is just plain bizarre. Both subjects principally concern teaching the skills of many forms of critical theories. The only substantial difference is the form of media that you apply the analysis to. Additionally considering the contemporary prevalence of visual media isn't it of more benefit for our communities to have better understanding of that? Then from a purely economic perspective the Film and TV industries provide many, many jobs and a great deal of economic activity.

I made a specific point to say film studies and not film, film studies involves watching films and writing about them, studying film is a good creative cause if it covers the right areas, script writing (probably better covered in an English degree), production and SFX (probably covered under graphic design), however I know many (reasonably) successful people in film and TV production, and not one got there through a degree, and they all say that the people who turn up with a degree are generally useless. But the question wasn't how do we stimulate the creative industries (which would involve spending more on film and TV startups, providing funding and facilities) it was how do we improve the education system. I wouldn't fund unlimited English degrees either, just the best and brightest in the selected subjects and based on how many business, industry (both heavy and creative), education, governments etc need. I also didn't say the list was inclusive, it would need careful consideration as to what was needed for the good of the country, hence the etc.

Shock, arbritary decision is infact what it says on the tin! But we have to draw the line somewhere, the current system means that we have too many people with qualifications that are of no use to either themselves or the community at large, funded by the tax payer.

Another suggestion for those best and brightest getting their degrees paid for might be a that it is a loan that is written off based on their performance. 100% written off if they get a 1st, 60% for a 2:1, 30% for a 2:2 and nothing for anything less, it would be an extra incentive to do well in their chosen field.

Edited 25 Nov 11, 12:02 PM by Mattbucks

But why are the best and brightest English degrees getting their degrees paid for whereas the best and brightest film studies students aren't? They are teaching broadly the same set of skills.

People studying English will help the film industry anyway, script writers, story writers. SFX will be done by graphic designers and visual artists, prodction is a technical skill to be learnt on the job (could easily come under the mentioned apprenticeship section of my earlier post) etc. People do not need a degree in watching films.

A degree in English, a degree in the critical appraisal of texts, isn't a degree in creative writing skills. So quite why people with English degrees are better placed to assist the film industry is a bit of a mystery. If you only want positive contributions to economic activity why not pay all the tuition fees for the Creative writing Master at UEA?

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

The universities get £14bn out of an annual £700bn tax spend.

That's about half what they are proposing to spend on our nuclear weapons upgrade. And being as that's a military spend it'll probably be at least twice as much. And remember that's to buy weapons that we'd pretty much only be using to trigger our own extinction.

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.