are we going to be remembered for the one policy we got wrong, or the many that we got right.

The one you got wrong as well as not paying your bills!

realise that if you want to play with the big boys and be in government, it often means taking unpopular decisions, and at times these decisions can come back to haunt you. Name of the game old son.

No. If you make promises, keep them, or people won't trust you in the future.
Never mind the "government is a tough job" excuses.
Clegg pledged to do one thing, and then did another. That is (simply put) a lie, or another way to put it is an abuse of trust. We students (i was one at the time) trusted Clegg to keep his word, he then broke that word, ergo we won't trust him again (at least I won't).

but the Lib Dems knew full well that they had a pre-election promise not to raise student fees.

Clegg must be a fairly clever man to have made it to where he is, but if he didn't see that breaking his word over such a clearly defined issue would overshadow all the 'good' he's done, then he's not a very sharp politician.

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

I personally think that tuition fees are totally wrong.

The main benefactors from an educated population is the country and hence the treasury. The move to get 50% of the population attending university has taken us to the point where, in a lot of cases, the average person on an average wage has to have a degree. That means all this talk of those with degrees are going to be many thousands of pounds better off than those that don't have degree's, is total BS.

It further compounds the problem as those leaving university now are saddled with repaying student loans, which restricts their ability to afford marriage, kids and mortgages.

This requirement by the governments that people should all get degree's in many cases moved the costs of training of young people from companies to the state and the young people themselves.

Therefore I think that a better method of funding would be to tax the companies that advertise and insist that new young employee's have a degree for a particular post.

This is probably a limited view from an electronics engineer, but until the day I retired, if I had to choose between two young people, one with a degree and one who was an apprentice with an HNC/D, without more information I would probably choose the apprentice.

Clegg must be a fairly clever man to have made it to where he is, but if he didn't see that breaking his word over such a clearly defined issue would overshadow all the 'good' he's done, then he's not a very sharp politician.

I am not in the business of defending Clegg, he is big enough to do that for himself. At the time he found himself between a rock and a hard place, almost which ever way he went it was going to backfire on him. Personally I would have upped the Fees frpm £3000 to £5000 and explained in detail to students why that decision was taken to protect FE. Then funded the FE shortfall in some other way. That wasn't done, and those of the public like you that were "directly affected" haven't forgotten.

Clegg helped put a government in power that pretty much no one in Britain wanted. He has no credibility and I hope it is the death of his party.

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Reality Internet Personality

I can understand any authority in their stance against feeble excuses by parents in keeping their children away from school.

However, this really does say a lot about some of the a******'s employed within that industry...

Mum faces court over cancer girls absence

"Miss Capper said: "Libby woke up... saying that she's got a sore stomach and I get scared... I want to keep my eye on her."
The mother's legal team, Glaisyers, said the council was being "heavy handed and inflexible". "

The above v this:

Primary head to take week's holiday to Caribbean - IN term time

Can the parents & students be allowed to prosecute her?

Well she's not taking a child out of school is she...

While she may not be technically doing anything wrong, i can see why it would go down badly with the parents of children at that school who can't do it, and she should have foreseen this.

It might take a little coordination, but i think it would be funny if most or all of the parents at that school also arranged a holiday during that same week (doesn't necessarily have to be to the Caribbean, the timing is the important thing), if/when the school issues fines, then all refuse to pay (strength in numbers).
What's the school going to do, prosecute all of them? (Unworkable.)

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

Sounds like it worked for Brian keating and Martin Christie

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

It appears that such schooling works for those people who want to learn. They will thrive.

Those who don't want to learn won't thrive. But then those same people don't do too well in the normal education system either.
Sure, it might beat the ability to read and write into them, just. But if they don't want to succeed in exams and such they won't, and don't.

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

I had a pretty bad school experience as I was a slow learner, so my primary school only focused on the bright ones, I failed my 11+ but had the good fortune to to to the best secondary modern in my area, however I was still not spotted as a slow learner till it was almost too late.

I scraped a few CSE passes due to the hard work of a few dedicated teachers.

All in all I hated almost all my days at school, they were not the best days of my life.

In the late 50's at my Secondary school, the girls went off to do Home Economics which was basically cooking, and typing classes, and the boys went off to do woodwork and metalwork. We met up later in class for the general subjects of maths, History & geography. Yes I suppose looking back it was sexist in a sort of way, it was designed to turn out stereotypes i.e. the dutiful little housewife and the breadwinner. But it was the way it was then, everybody was happy with it, and nobody queried it. Germaine Greer and womens lib came later and upset the applecart.

Of course it was sexist, no question about it. Are you really sure "everybody was happy with it". Perhaps the men were. People like Germaine Greer and womens lib, allowed women to take their correct place in society, allowing women a lot more freedom than they had up to then (it is still not perfect). I would hate to go back to the 1950's way of thinking.

I was never taught to cook, how many men would have found that useful. Instead I was taught woodwork and metalwork two skills I have never used to this day.

No I was glad to get out of school and start my real life.

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Of course it would help if the system itself was not constantly played around with, just to suit some politician's idea of making the statistics meet their requirements...

Fewer students get 5 good GCSE's

...& the reason why?

"It is not a reflection of the quality of teaching nor the amount of effort and hard work put in by students.

Our qualifications system must be trusted. This year the opposite is happening."

To this day I can still do a Dovetail joint if I have to and assemble flatpacks that seem to defeat 99.9% of the population!

Your view of the world leaves much to be desired!

Schools should be concentrating on educating, not on building their own petty ivory towers!

"It's not that long ago that boys were being excluded from classes at schools because their locks were deemed to be too long. Now this! Hair too short. I ask you, how much more daft shall we become?"

A post from ES99 in the Cannabis thread

As an overly bright child I did not have a happy school experience

I'm really sorry to hear that, As far as I know most children's experiences were quite OK.

Well as far as I know, may children did not have good school experiences. So I guess we might have to go look at something more than anecdotal evidence on this. From the course I am studying right now, 90% of Aboriginal children have very poor school experiences. So maybe if we break it all down by class, race and gender we could well find that the school system serves some groups better than others.

One of my friend's daughter's was educated in a Free School (no fixed curriculum and totally child centred). She has grown in a remarkable, self assured woman. I suspect it wouldn't work for every child, but for some it is better than the regular school.

Then I am very pleased for her, but I would say that she is most likely in the minority. But yes when it works well for some children it works very well.

Again, you are speaking an opinion based on how you view the world. I however would rather form my opinions based on actual data. I do not know the answer to this, but I am sure there are some research studies on it.

I am glad your school experience was satisfactory for you.

It was OK, I wouldn't say they were the absolute happiest days of my life though. But I was one of those borderline children that peaked a bit too late to take full advantage of the mainstream system at the time. I had a second chance exam at the 11+, borderline again, so had an interview at the LCC County Hall in London as it then was. One of the questions was "add up in your head 17,18,19,18". What they were looking for was the ability to think outside the box, and realise that it was the same as 4x18=72. At age 11? Anyhow I just dipped it again and went to the Secondary Modern. Then I found my feet and passed the 13+ exam and went to a junior Technical School and became an Engineer.

Well obviously some people are quite capable of doing that test at the age of 11. I passed the equivalent of the 11+. However, are you aware that the pass mark was actually higher for girls than for boys to prevent too many girls going to grammar school? This is a fact. You can look it up if you want. This supports my thesis that schools back then were geared more to one segment of the population than another.

I have wondered how my life would have turned out if I had gone to Grammar School instead, probably some boring 9-5 office job. I'm happy enough with the way it turned out, certainly hasn't been boring that is for sure :-)

My friend did not pass the equivalent of the 11+. She now has a Phd. Hard work can get you just as far, if not further than "thinking outside the box". I believe this was the idea behind the comprehensive education system, that everyone should be given an equal chance. I am not sure she would have a Phd if she had been educated under the grammar school system.

You also had more PE time scheduled back then that schools do know, so I suspect you got to run about more rather than spending so much time stuck at a desk trying to meet targets.

Not really, most of us hated the PT/PE lesson, being made to do forward somersaults over the horse and press ups, and jogging around for no good reason that we could see. And what really really pissed us all off big time was the compulsory RI/RE lessons. That was the one thing that looking back on it, I really should have rebelled against. The only one that got off was a lad that had a letter from his mum saying he was Jehovas Witness. We all thought that it was terribly unfair.

I never liked them either, especially as I was very small at school (I didn't grow until I was about 15). However, my point is that at least children were doing more of what they are naturally supposed to do. Move around.

I was lucky that the left wing schooling I went through was able to be flexible to my needs and the school let me just get on with it when I refused to read the silly books they wanted me to for English and let me pick my own (much more difficult) literature. I doubt they would have done that in your day.

Absolutely no way!!! There were set books for each subject which you HAD to use, whether you liked it or not. I'm just wondering if you were just so much a difficult pupil that they just gave up and let you do your own thing for a bit of peace and quiet.

Nope, they just had a slightly more left wing child centred policy than back in your day. I really don't think the saw my as "disruptive" by the time I got to secondary school, especially as I was in an English class where one particular boy would spend all the time wa*king under his desk and another student had a habit of throwing chairs at the teacher. It puts the idea of "disruptive" in perspective, doesn't it?

Of course in the golden age you are talking about I wouldn't have been allowed to study science at all and would have been forced to do something like typing instead. Thank goodness things have improved since you were at school.

In the late 50's at my Secondary school, the girls went off to do Home Economics which was basically cooking, and typing classes, and the boys went off to do woodwork and metalwork. We met up later in class for the general subjects of maths, History & geography. Yes I suppose looking back it was sexist in a sort of way, it was designed to turn out stereotypes i.e. the dutiful little housewife and the breadwinner. But it was the way it was then, everybody was happy with it, and nobody queried it. Germaine Greer and womens lib came later and upset the applecart.

Everyone was happy with it? Seriously? You really were oblivious weren't you? Perhaps you need to read some more woman's literature written by women who went through that experience and actually find out just how happy they were about it.

Anyway, you clearly know very little about what school was like for me or what sort of student I was.

How the heck could I do?? I didn't know you then and didn't experience the generation of schooling that you did. C'mon now do behave!

Why don't you behave, Chris? You make sweeping generalisations about your own experience constantly as if what happened to you is "the norm". From my experience your world outlook is definitely not "the norm" and you need badly to be shaken out of it as it actually does damage to a significant number of people who aren't like you.

I still struggle in sitting in classes or lectures that are too long and sometimes have to leave. I am not ADHD, I have a normal reaction to unnatural situations.

Being totally honest I would say that you do seem to have a short attention span and a certain attitude, but that is not ADHD as it is commonly defined.

You think I have a short attention span?? LMAO? Yeah, I made it through a physics degree and lots of post graduate course because I "have a shot attention span"

Oh Chris, you really do come out with some utter nonsense sometimes.

So please don't claim that because it was ok for you that it was ok for everyone.

It was a fair comment as it was generally meant, i.e to encompass the vast majority. You were apparently in the minority where the established system didn't appear to suit you. I wouldn't have said that what I experienced was the "Golden age", but certainly I believe I got a better education than any kid gets today. There was no such thing at that time as all these off their head educational psychologists with their rubbish ideas. Lets teach phonetics they said, gets kids to read and converse a lot quicker. We can introduce spelling later. There is now a whole generation of adults in their 50's that can't spell for toffee, and never will do due to some cockeyed experiment.

I can't spell very well, but I am a very, very fast reader. My spelling has improved with age and I am still a very, very fast reader. So was the experiment actually a failure? Not for me. I am sorry that you still seem to think everyone should be like you. Most people are not like you, it is a basic fact that the conservative mind often fails to grasp. Hence their love of the "one size fits all" education system.

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Reality Internet Personality

Well that has put me in my place then hasn't it. Now, I have two options here, either crawl away in disgrace as a non-person or fight back. I will think upon it for a couple of days and then decide.

Chris, you repeatedly insult me then claim that "you've been handbagged".

Do you really think that I just suddenly came up and "handbagged" you as if you were innocently minding your own business?

I guess you are blissfully unaware of how insulting you are sometimes.

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Reality Internet Personality

Well that has put me in my place then hasn't it. Now, I have two options here, either crawl away in disgrace as a non-person or fight back. I will think upon it for a couple of days and then decide.

Chris, you repeatedly insult me then claim that "you've been handbagged".

Do you really think that I just suddenly came up and "handbagged" you as if you were innocently minding your own business?

I guess you are blissfully unaware of how insulting you are sometimes.

Oh, he is more aware than you will ever realise. Personally, I as well as others believe that he is a lonely old man, retired with nothing to do. With those types, the Internet has become a godsend.

What I personally find really laughable is the image he portrays as a protector of women, yet as seen on many posts here, his views of women are archaic.

Also, god help anyone that runs down his "beloved" British Empire. Anyone does that on his threads & the reply is "bugger off if you don't like it".

Ian Smith helped the world to see what "British Elitism" was when he declared UDI.

Nearly 50 years later, they still can't accept that fact!

*cough*

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rOZZ
Music
Pictures

He'll run away and hide. Stunned that the world is different than when he was in first grade. It was all so simple then. Girls were to be barefoot and pregnant and men went off on great adventures drawing lines in the sand. How self inflated the times were. It is as if the 1960's didn't happen.

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Don't you mean the 1860's? It took over 100 years before the education system really began to change.

Sad to say, there are still some who wished it never changed!

Education in the 40's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cch7Z2UIkM

Thanks to Qatar & the British Library, a new source of education has opened up...

Qatar Digital Library

...it is in no way complete as yet, as the British Library is continuing to digitise its records.

One thing I have learned from it is:

"The Line in the Sand Gang" is a moniker well deserved of this country!

Well I don't agree with everyone piling in on Chris, but I do think there needs to be a little more awareness on his part about difference.

Most education systems were originally set up to favour one segment of society and to further the agenda of the ruling segment of society. In most western societies that would be the rich white man. The left wingers have tried to change this so that education can benefit everyone and provide opportunities for all.

There was a heyday in the past if you were a white male. However, being a white male is not the "norm" or the standard we should all be judged by.

So perhaps people should stop and think before making claims about how much better such and such was/is and analyse if it is better for everyone, or just better for you.

Chris if of his generation and his background. A time when it was assumed that the British white way was the best way for everyone. This was a foundation of the way the British Empire was created.

It wasn't a great model however if you were Irish, Scottish, Welsh, poor working class or of colour. I have been doing a lot of academic reading lately on how this view of the "rightness" of the British way of doing things caused so much suffering and horror amongst the Aboriginals in Canada. I've also been able to contrast this with a lot of similar suffering caused to those back at home who were forced under the English regime to adopt the English world view which Chris often espouses without realising it.

So perhaps Chris and Sirius could step back and recognise that their historic backgrounds are causing this antagonism between them. I suspect that there are many in Ireland who do not think that things were better under English occupation. It might be nice if Chris would step back and realise that his attitude, which he takes for granted as being the correct English way, caused immense suffering across the globe and can be considered antagonistic by those of us that recognise it.

The "English way" is not seen as universally benevolent and a little tact in this area might go a long way. I know that I would get less offended if there were some recognition of this.

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Reality Internet Personality