Education, Education, Education Cameronian style

The Blair mantra takes on a new meaning under Cameron. This is the fact that there are far too many kinds of school now and this is causing huge confusion. The one thing certain about it is that it will create more inequality, more elitism, as those more able to navigate the maze will be at an advantage. Once again that is likely to be the more affluent, so education, along with health, housing, transport, utilities becomes available to those who have the ability to pay. Forget the unemployed, the disabled, the sick.
The new schools are modelled on those already existing to offer privilege. Cameron’s notion is that can be reproduced in the state sector, and he has been back to Eton to ask for them to intervene in the state sector. Is that a good idea? It seems to me that the privilege comes from having the money to go to Eton. Educating children is a different matter. As with everything else at the moment th idea is to make less and less provide more and more. This means setting up schools with unqualified teachers, paying less, reducing pensions and job security while imposing longer hours and unfavourable conditions. In short driving a coach and horses through what has been hard one over many years. How will lowering the morale of the teaching force help raise standards? Free schools and academies have other purposes than education!
The supposed rationale for making cuts is that services have become unaffordable. Teachers’ pensions are a case in point. The NUT has shown this to be a fallacy. They seem to have forgotten that a few decades back it was said that there was too much in the teachers’ pension pot and so it needed to be reduced and so the money could be used for other purposes.
“Cuts” is what has been sold to us. It is not that. Here we see the beginnings of the dismantling of the state sector. This came into being to give all of us the opportunity to have what previously only a privileged few could enjoy. Thatcher began fighting “the enemy within”, that is the representatives of those who worked in manufacturing or obtaining the materials to carry that out. 80% of us were engaged in that. All that was stopped and we began relying on foreign, unreliable and very costly sources for our energy needs. While the productive sector shrunk those engaged in financial, unproductive, services rose exponentially. They have not only risen, they have taken over and are able to dictate what they take home and what the rest of us don’t. Problem is it’s difficult to blame the Tories who we know to represent an elite. If you voted Lib Dem you voted for this. But New Labour brought in privatisation which exceeded Thatcher’s dreams, including schools which would break away from local authorities and thus accountability through the democratic process, the Academies.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.