Greatest Con in Schools Exposed

The Friday Thing: FORGET maths, English and history.

Some schools (probably most of them) have been signing pupils up for GCSEs in things like jam-butty making, pencil sharpening, nose picking and painting finger nails because most of the, shall we say not-so-bright children who sit at the back of class texting their friends instead of learning, can actually pass exams in what are politely called vocational subjects.

With the emphasis on league tables and the quality of teaching (or lack of it), schools have decided that the only way they can increase the number of GCSEs pupils pass is by — what some might call — cheating.

There are 3,175 subjects in which pupils can currently sit GCSE exams and most of them could probably be passed by those in primary schools.

But all those passes make the schools look good and suggest that the school is a hothouse of academic learning and that the pupils might just be brighter than even doting parents thought.

Effectively, schools and the education establishment have pretended that all qualifications are basically the same.

In other words, a GCSE in bed-making or looking after the cat is every bit as good as a pass in science, a foreign language or even geography.

In fact as Michael Gove, the excellent education minister, writes in big letters on the blackboard (or white board or just board if you are infected by PC-itis): “Young people have taken courses that have led nowhere.”

Such taking advantage of a dubious situation (or deceptions, if you like) makes the schools look better than they are but does nothing for the education of the children which is, or so we always thought, what schools were for.

But the game is up. The number of GCSE subjects is to be cut to 125, that’s 3,050 fewer for those who can’t do the sums, and teachers will now have to be smart enough to actually teach pupils challenging subjects that have a bearing on their futures. Isn’t that the idea of school after all?



SO what will your bonus be for a year of hard work in the real world where most of us live? Probably the best you can hope for is that you still have a job.

And what do you think Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin, the man who cost taxpayers, you and me, £45 billion and almost single-handedly put the country into recession, would rather have lost, his knighthood or his £360,000 a year pension?

Much has been made, too, of the decision by Mr Goodwin’s successor Stephen Hester to give up his own £963,000 bonus (to be paid on top of a salary that has more noughts than Oldham Athletic’s results this season) but does anyone seriously believe that he won’t, at some time in the future, get that lump sum and no doubt several more millions besides?

This is just not the real world. It is like a game of Monopoly played with real money — yours and mine — where scores of sleight-of-hand merchants are paid millions in bonuses and wages for gambling with our dosh.

If they lose, we make up the losses so they can still live the good life; if they win, they buy a new mansion, a yacht or a private plane.

And what do we, the humble British taxpayers, get for owning 80 per-cent of RBS? No dividend, no bonus, no big fat pension; nothing at all in fact.

No wonder more youngsters at Oldham schools are studying maths. They want to be bankers, too, and who can blame them?



FINAL WORD: Advising people not to be in hospital at the weekend could just turn out to be the best bit of medical advice anyone could get.

Apparently, mortality rates are up 20 per cent at weekends because many operating theatres, diagnostic and scanning facilities are shut and senior doctors have their feet up at home or are on the golf course.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is concerned over patient death rates and says that although nurses have adapted to a 24/7 culture of working, consultants are a rare sight at weekends.

And according to Lansley, 500 lives a year could be saved in London alone if staff and facilities that are available during the week were also available at weekends.

So as far as the NHS is concerned it is only a weekend — but it is a weak end to the week for patients.