Power To Parents

Anyone who doubts the decline in British education standards should look at the figures at the end of a report in the Telegraph.

Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge said the university admitted 140 fewer undergraduates this year than last because of an increase in the number of four year degrees, now common in engineering and the sciences, a result of pupils knowing less than they used to.

This despite, of course, repeated government assertions that things have never been better, as evidenced by the ever higher grades achieved by ever more pupils in ever more subjects. Nothing to do with grade inflation, naturally. Blatant lies, and part of Britain's Sovietisation.

The Telegraph also mentions that the numbers obtaining at least three As at A level or the "vocational equivalent" (as the university admissions service regards hairdressing) increased by 68% last year to 128,000 (or around one in six of the entire year group). And yet pupils know less than they used to and degree course get longer in consequence. It doesn't add up.

I don't see how Britain's education system can ever improve so long as it remains a political football, and a vehicle for social engineering. Stop pretending the academic and the non-academic are the same. Get the politicians, the civil servants, and the inspectors out, and let parents make the decisions.