Childintime wrote:

legaldinho wrote:

Problem is the targeting of Muslims only.

Yar, UKIP aren't even trying to hid that shit now.

Thing is, I watched Question Time a while back (2015 or 2016, I forget) where OFSTED were accused of antisemitism by a panellist for asking a Jewish school why they separated genders and enforced unbalanced dress codes.

So, publicly there's deffo a perception of anti-Muslim bias (and indeed that may be true) but there's pushback and accusations of anti-religious bigotry towards anything that might infringe on anything..."anti-British ".

You get how problematic that sounds, right?

Separate genders and unbalanced dress codes in certain schools have been part and parcel of British education for years, the school near me, Haberdasher Aske's, has separate schools for boys and girls and two different dress codes. Having these things in a faith school clearly isn't anti-British.

Childintime wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

I'm all for banning faith schools. I suspect UKIP would never make a proposal which would include banning Christian schools, which is why they would be mocked.

Indeed. Though that mocking allows people to dodge having to deal with some difficult questions. That's not aimed at you, specifically, I just think that people on "our" side would mock anyone who wanted to ban a religious action in the public sphere on the grounds of "British values" of it came from the daily mail / ukip - yet that's exactly what we're talking about doing here, no?

If UKIP or the Mail ever came out with something that was sensible, I'd be willing to recognise it, even while condemning the ideology.

The thing with that manifesto is it is loaded to counter detractors.
Any attempt to criticise it will be met with "so you think FGM is OK then".

It is using a giant, racist sledgehammer to crack a nut and our media/politics unfortunately aren't smart enough to work around it.

The only problem I have with making all schools equal and everyone going to their local is some locals are fooking shite. I came back to Britain from an international school in spain and was plonked in a local comp. Lessons just didn't happen sometimes, disruptive chaos, uninterested twats etc. There was a grammar nearby but that pulled from far and wide. There weren't the numbers of nice, local, middle class little wankers like me to generate the increase in standards from pushy parents.

There's probably a solution there somewhere but the grammar I went to for a levels for 2 years is the only decent British schooling I've had.

The solution in that case may well have been abolishing the grammar.

An influx of pushy, middle-class parents would likely have sped that up greatly.

The reason for having ditched grammars and secondary moderns and moving towards comprehensives was precisely because it can.

Yossarian wrote:

The reason for having ditched grammars and secondary moderns and moving towards comprehensives was precisely because it can.

I'm sure it can, just that it won't always depending on the make up of the local area. If your local school is rotten and there's no other options, then what? Private tuition? Then you start getting private schooling by proxy.

imho all forced locals would do would be to increase ghettoisation - rich folk have the means to all move to the villages around Eton and whatnot.

I think schools need to get straightened out before we can start forced catchment areas again.

1. Overturn this stupid change in funding. A pound in a nice town in the North doesn't equal a pound in a central London school.

2. Get rid of grammar and private schools. All schools are state.

3. Get rid of academies and religious schools. All schools reading from the same sheet.

4. Ideally schools wouldn't specialise but funding dictates it. With that in mind all schools must choose an academic, vocational and art subject to specialise in with the additional funding split by no more than 40% per category.
This will ensure that regardless of the type of pupil they will have an opportunity that represents them.

Bonus.
Course work vs written exam should be representative of the subject. No one wants a carpenter who can tell you what a dove-tail joint is but doesn't know what end of the saw to hold.

Who is going to fix my car/plumbing/house/electrics, treat my illness, advance renewable energy, plan building works.
..

?

Liveinadive wrote:

Who is going to fix my car/plumbing/house/electrics, treat my illness, advance renewable energy, plan building works.
..

?

Cocko

I'm against banning independent schools. Not sure I'm comfortable if only the government (this government) decide what's getting taught.

But absolutely, what I would do is make the education department independent of government. Run by people who know about education. Instead of a series of clueless dickwad SoS for Education who just reverses what the last lot did.

Take the chaos over the new GCSEs for example.

It's no different to when the Bank of England got to decide interest rates free from political interference: result (relative) stability.

Yeah, you have a point there Workid and Yoss with the follow up.

If we had an independent education department I would have thought it would then be possible to hit shot of private examination boards as well.

Tim Farron has been pretty shitty over gay issues though.

I pretty much agree with that too. I'll be fucked if I'd ever vote for them though. I remember the last time I did that. They'd need to make a fucking obsidian monument promising not to be a Tory footstool.