Despite his "ladder of opportunity", laying out "the statistics of educational inequality", Robert Halfon`s desire for a "more socially just system" is clearly yet another example of empty Tory rhetoric ("The Tory party should change its name to the Workers` party. I am 100% serious", 17/04/18). He might well suggest that A-levels should be replaced, but knows full well that, in many public schools, the process has already started.
Following the cheating scandal exposed by the Guardian last summer, Halfon`s select committee questioned the head of Eton, a director of Ofqual and the chief executive of Cambridge Assessment International Education (CIE), which runs the Pre-U examinations, around which the cheating was focussed. Even when the head admitted seven of his staff were involved in these examinations, either marking or setting papers, and the CIE chief admitted his organisation was not a member of the Joint Council for Qualifications, which inspects and regulates all other public examinations, the committee displayed none of the indignation or disgust one would expect at the revelation of such unfairness. Not one member of the committee, Halfon included, thought it necessary to delve deeper, and ask, for example, about why so many public schools prefer Pre-U exams to the traditional A-Levels.
Wilby and others may not regard Halfon as an "orthodox Conservative", but someone in a position of authority who refuses to challenge instances of obvious unjustness, sounds pretty typical of 21st century Toryism to me!
No comments:
Post a Comment