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Posted on Sunday, August 14, 2011 7:35 AM
Rainforests have been sacrificed this week in an attempt to analyse the riots in English cities. One of the best efforts appears in the current edition of The Spectator - fromHarriet Sargeant, who points the finger squarely at education – or lack of it – that has made a swathe of young men and women unemployable. Quoting figures on literacy released in the week before the riots Sargeant maintains that |
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Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2011 3:47 PM
We in Scotland have been a tad reticent this week in intruding on the private grief that has overtaken London and other major cities in England. Professor Tom Devine says we are a more conservative (with a small c) society, not given to civil unrest. How can he be so sure? The best way to alleviate poverty has long been to heave a brick through a designer shop window, and if poverty is the cause of the rioting, then we have communities every bit as materially poor as Tottenham. |
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Posted on Monday, August 08, 2011 4:32 PM
Those at the helm of big business like Sir Terry Leahy at Tesco right down to small businesses in the High Street constantly bemoan that school leavers are not prepared for the world of work. A good many who knock on their door seeking employment, even with Scottish Highers or A-levels, apparently cannot spell and are incapable of stringing a sentence together, let alone writing a report. Now comes evidence that a huge proportion are also leaving school without the basic numeracy skills that enable them to function properly in either their work or personal lives, with almost half of those sitting GCSE Maths in England failing to achieve a C grade. |
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Posted on Thursday, February 03, 2011 6:12 PM
Professor Richard Kerley, respected authority on local government in Scotland, shattered a few myths in Tuesday’s Scotsman. Proposals for educational change usually involve altering the structure or throwing more money into the pot, as though moving schools round like pawns on a chess board was going to improve Scotland’s education. (This is not to say all such change would be unwelcome. East Lothian wants to devolve more control to school clusters, where headteachers and parents influence the budget locally. |
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