We heard a lot from the Plastic Prime Minister before he ascended to the throne about Waste. We heard his former opponent satirise all that, on the grounds that the nation’s economy couldn’t be repaired by cutting down on paper clips in Whitehall. But now, of course, Mr Clegg is following his new motto: ‘Never mind the policy, feel the width… of my grin.’ Anything goes, so long as Mr Clegg has POWER. (Mr Clegg, whom – one suspects – knows little of poetry, would do well to see Donne on the subject.) So, presumably, Mr Clegg – the Tweedledee of this new duo – is now passionately and sincerely committed to reducing Waste: the small fact that he decried Mr Cameron’s call to do so during his election campaign is of course irrelevant to his darker purpose. (Do the people who appear to be taken in by all this really have such short memories?)
Those of us particularly interested in education, believing that most of society’s problems directly and indirectly stem from its decline, and that any real programme for regenerating our nation must be based on the real, radical improvement of our education system, are waiting eagerly to see what this new government of sweetness and harmony will do to abolish Waste in education, freeing the system and its money ready for real improvement.
We have been disappointed. Their main idea so far seems to be that when we don’t know what to do about a school – and most of us don’t these days, particularly not those of us in the recent governments – we should just ask the parents. Fine – if we happen to ask parents who know a great deal about boys, girls, teachers, discipline, teaching, learning, English, maths, counselling, health, buildings, money, exams, sex, bullying, pianos, cricket balls, food, school ties, the stationery cupboard, and what sort of biscuit Mrs Wilkins likes with her coffee. Otherwise, rather disastrous. By definition, teachers know about schools (or – by heck – they should do); parents know about banking, computers, railways, groceries… or whatever their fields of professional expertise may be. Of course some of them will have experience and qualities that make them invaluable as supporters and advisors: that’s what PTAs and governing boards are all about. The idea of parents in general running schools – deciding the basics of whether and how – is quite absurd.
Interesting to try the logic out on other areas of life…
A surgeon runs into trouble in the operating theatre: ‘Ah – let’s wake up the patient and ask him to take over.’ The builder finds mending my roof too much for him: no problem, of course, since I can just put on my overalls and mount the ladder to sort it out. A desperately worried client approaches his solicitor for expert guidance and reassurance: ‘Well… I don’t really know,’ says the solicitor: ‘I’ve rather given up trying to handle the law – but I can lend you the books for you to see what you make of it yourself.’
What a way to run a country!
So what have the delightful duo done so far to eliminate Waste, freeing resources of money and teachers’ time, so that the teachers can go back to doing what they did rather well a few decades ago – running their schools and their classrooms? It’s wonderful, gentle reader: they’ve changed the name of the department. A stroke of sheer brilliance! No one else, of course, has ever thought up that little trick: convince people you’re doing something, when in fact you haven’t a clue what to do, by giving things flashy new names. That’s how clerks became administrators, managers became directors, and – horror of horrors! – pupils became students. It achieves so much.
We used to have the Ministry of Education. Was there ever a need to change the mere name? Has changing the name actually done anything for the nation and the standard of its education service? Successive governments have thought so. We started off changing it to the Department for Education and Science; we ended up with the Department for Children, Schools and Families. (Without the big letters, though – they’re too difficult for people these days… because of the decline in our educational standards.) But all’s too weak for brave Cameron and Mc Clegg: they’ve changed the name to the Department for Education. Of course, they’re so much against Waste. That’s why they’ve just wasted so much money on a name change – involving an entire new website, all stationery to be changed, every document containing the old name to be altered… Oh what a lovely Waste! And it stops us thinking about the real problems: massive decline in standards, lack of discipline, waste-of-time tests, lightweight qualifications, disillusioned staff, ludicrous paperwork, under-achieving pupils short-changed by one government after another.
But wait a minute… Department for Education? Isn’t that what we had when we were all little? Oh no, of course not – that was the MINISTRY OF Education. The DEPARTMENT FOR Education is on a higher plane, of course.
We must, I suppose, take comfort from small things – we’re unlikely to get any large things to comfort us: they’ve put back the capital letters. Yes! David and Nick can use big letters.
The Barchester Times 