Education brings up another annoyance - one from this week for me.
It is nearing the end of year here in Scotland so we have had A-junior's end of term report. Now you may suppose that this contains some kind of rating of his abilities - maybe something like grades or percentages or even genuine comments.
Nope - now we have the "Curriculum for Excellence" as the McGovernment.Scotland calls it. So what we get instead is a single sided sheet with about 5 paragraphs of, well, total bollocks to be honest. Apparently A-junior "works well in groups and as an individual". Well at what ? No idea. Is it work at a level kids of his age should be doing ? No idea. Is he ahead or behind in something ? No idea.
He is an "effective contributor". How ? What at ?
This is annoying for two reasons really. Firstly Scotland used to have one of the best public education systems in the world. Scottish kids would regularly rank in the top 10 in the world for key subjects like maths or science or history at age 10. Now we are even lower than England and we spend 30% more on each kid. This difference in spending is one reason why my English homeland wants Scotland to be independent, event if Scotland itself is not so sure.
Secondly there was a debate on Radio Scotland the other week about education. Except it kind of wasn't. The two studio people were someone from the local councils in Scotland (they run the schools) and the teaching unions. So what we got was a discussion about wage settlements and some huffing and puffing about how its impossible to sack a useless teacher. It really really is, honest. So absolutely no discussion about standards or grades or how to get the system back on track. Nothing. There was much foaming at the mouth as I was listening as there has been before.*
As a leftie I believe in universal education just like universal healthcare - hey we have it here and it works when not being "re-disorganised" over and over - but I am seriously considering placing myself in retirement bankruptcy to make sure A-junior gets a decent private education.
A-Junior is clever BTW - he can work out most problems straight away. I got him a science - electronics kit - for Christmas and he worked it all out. He also worked out Judo moves so he, as a small kid, can beat the big kid. No idea where he gets the big brains - or the good looks - from but he has them, and I hate to see it wasted like this.
Rant over.
*(Radio Scotland had a previous debate when fuel prices rose about how this affects rural communities here. This is a problem - I pay ~ £1.35 a litre in Embra, people in the highlands and islands pay over £1.50 and earn less. The studio person on that debate was someone from WWF. Why ? No idea. Maybe someone representing rural communities would have been a good idea ? Not with the BBC obviously. His advice ? "Everyone should just move house and stop using cars" - pillock. I did ring in on this occasion but I think my comment to the researcher "why the **** is this guy on the radio" probably meant I wasn't going to be called to contribute...)