Tuesday 6 May 2014

Teachers and pupils deserve better!

After four years of unlimited Goveism, it`s clear teachers and pupils deserve a better deal, something sadly which is far from guaranteed after the next election when a new government is formed. Early on in the coalition, Gove succeeded in achieving what teachers had failed to do over decades of trying, uniting the teacher unions, and bringing about joint industrial action. Simultaneously, he had not only insulted the most recent recipients of top grades at GCSE and A-level, but all those thousands and thousands who had worked hard and gained excellent results in these examinations over the years. Without a scrap of empirical evidence, and based entirely on ideological belief that only privately educated could achieve real academic success, Gove initiated a wholesale reform of school assessment. Refusing to take advice from subject experts and experienced examiners, he set about the dismantling of all aspects of examinations which had made them forces for social mobility; out went coursework, modular assessment, re-sits, AS levels and all things attempting to make the playing-field more level. Criterion referencing will be in the firing line soon. Back to the 1950s, accompanied by the longer-term goal, the return of a two-tiered system, and all with the backing of a blinkered and duplicitous LibDem leader.

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