A child grows up in a working-class part of a provincial town. At the age of 7 he is already displaying a prodigious talent for athletics and football. His PE teacher thinks he has a potential genius on his hands. The teacher arranges to meet with the boy's parents, and discusses with them the possibility of their son applying for a place at one of the several "elite" sporting acadamies into which the government and the Lottery have both piled large sums of money. The parents, their dull eyes for once gleaming with promises of untold future riches, agree wholeheartedly. The boy goes off to the academy, receives top-flight training from experienced sportsmen and women, and goes on to join Arsenal at the tender age of 15. By 21, he is one of the Premiership's highest-paid footballers. By 27 he is a hopeless cocaine addict living in an enormous mansion near Chelmsford andpaying child support to three different women.
Another child grows up in a different part of the same town. At the age of 7 he is already displaying a prodigious talent for mathematics and sciences. His biology teacher thinks he has a potential genius on his hands. Unfortunately, however, the government does not believe in "elitism" in what it laughably calls our education system, so there are no "elite" academic academies where the boy's talents can be nurtured. The parents, while fully aware that their son is clearly very bright, simply cannot afford to send him to public school, so he remains where he is. By the age of 15, he has given up hope of getting out of the town, and, after dropping out of school at 16, takes a job at the local PC World, where the last vestiges of hope and self-esteem are drained from him by the vacuousness of his existence.
The government is tieing itself in knots trying to decide how the education system should be "structured", but seems to have completely given up on the idea of actually trying to teach children. So-called "elitism" is forbidden, and as such, bright, intelligent, curious children are held back so as not to "disadvantage" their duller, less curious, less intelligent peers. The government tests kids from the most ludicrously early age, but seems concerned only with checking to see how many of the useless "national curriculum" facts they have retained, not whether they are actually using those facts to form their own opinions.
Somehow I'm not filled to overflowing with confidence about my kids' prospects.
Another child grows up in a different part of the same town. At the age of 7 he is already displaying a prodigious talent for mathematics and sciences. His biology teacher thinks he has a potential genius on his hands. Unfortunately, however, the government does not believe in "elitism" in what it laughably calls our education system, so there are no "elite" academic academies where the boy's talents can be nurtured. The parents, while fully aware that their son is clearly very bright, simply cannot afford to send him to public school, so he remains where he is. By the age of 15, he has given up hope of getting out of the town, and, after dropping out of school at 16, takes a job at the local PC World, where the last vestiges of hope and self-esteem are drained from him by the vacuousness of his existence.
The government is tieing itself in knots trying to decide how the education system should be "structured", but seems to have completely given up on the idea of actually trying to teach children. So-called "elitism" is forbidden, and as such, bright, intelligent, curious children are held back so as not to "disadvantage" their duller, less curious, less intelligent peers. The government tests kids from the most ludicrously early age, but seems concerned only with checking to see how many of the useless "national curriculum" facts they have retained, not whether they are actually using those facts to form their own opinions.
Somehow I'm not filled to overflowing with confidence about my kids' prospects.
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