From Baker to Balls

Four former Education Ministers appeared before the education select committee yesterday; Ken Baker, David Blunkett, Estelle Morris and Charles Clarke.

At last I understand why we have the education system that we have.  For decades, each new set of politicians thinks they know what needs to be done.  Few stop to ask if it is really right for people in SW1 to impose these decisions in the first place.

The case for having a state-run curriculum and testing was never really made.  There was an assertion made that a curriculum was needed to help children move from school to school - and that politicians needed to have "levers to pull".

There was an assumption that if something has to be nation-wide, it must be run by government.  

Lord Baker told me that officials in Washington used to bemoan the fact that the United States never had a national curriculum set in Washington.  While a French Minister, on the other hand, personally dictated the content of the French one.

"Indeed" I replied. "And one country invented the internet and the other didn’t."

Posted on 9 March 2010 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

am i realy worthless as a free citizen in england after the 8 years of hell given by government to a criminal mayor to abuse my human rights over pilot schemes who compensates for the victims of data given out to the public or dna on the innocents being kept and given out to the public,by a corrupt cleveland police foarce after operation lnacett enquiree where it cost 8 million and noone was convicted of a crime

Posted on 9 March 2010 13:08 by neil scott

Internet invented by Brit Sir Tim Berners-Lee at Cern in Switzerland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

Posted on 9 March 2010 15:05 by Neil Craig

Neil, Actually it's a little more complicated than that.

See http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_Internet

Almost by definition the internet could not have been invented by one person .... and most of the key innovations behind the advent of the web happened in America.

Posted on 9 March 2010 16:38 by Douglas Carswell

Douglas, this is off-topic I know, but I would like to see you blog about <a href=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8558044.stm>this story</a>; the government quango dragging a political party into court a few weeks before an election in order to force it to admit people hostile to its reason to exist. It may be an intra-socialist quarrel, but for Labour to do this -- and who can doubt such a move must have government backing -- means that they are trying to win the election through the courts, not at the ballot box. Do you want to wait until expressing opposition to global warming is also illegal for a politician? Never mind what the BNP is -- this is election tampering of the sort we see in the third-world. Why is there no outcry?

Posted on 9 March 2010 20:41 by Roger

It's curious that in a previous post, you mention the problems of defence procurement. Indeed, President Dwight Eisenhower mentioned the problems in his own country regarding this same issue. This military industrial complex he warned against was one of the drivers of the internet (the DARPA protocols). Perhaps one of the reasons why one invented an important part of the internet is that its MIC had the protectionist finances to engage in what was blue sky research. It's nothing to do with the education system at all, but partly to do with the protectionist nature of defence procurement in the US.

Try harder.

Posted on 10 March 2010 00:58 by Barry

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