Tim Worstall

Yes, he does.
Lecturers’ union UCU will call on the government to abolish all university tuition fees – and force big business to pick up the tab. The demand is made in a new report highlighting Britain’s status as one of the cheapest countries for firms to do business.
Currently British businesses only pay [...]

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Thousands of primary school children are being taught in supersized classes of more than 40 pupils, according to figures.
There are tens of thousands of qualified teachers (and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it were 100,000 or more) who already work for the education system but never actually do any educating.
They’re sitting in the [...]

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If anyone’s at a loose end tonight would they fancy going along to the House of Commons? There’s an interesting question that should be asked.
R. Murphy Esq will be speaking:
I am speaking at a meeting tonight in the House of Commons organised by the University and Colleges Union.
The aim is to abolish university fees [...]

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So says Hilary Mantel.
The 57-year-old novelist said that society ran on a “male timetable” which dictated that women should have babies at an older age.
“Having sex and having babies is what young women are about, and their instincts are suppressed in the interests of society’s timetable,” she [...]

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It’s year 10’s English class in a ­London comprehensive. Forty kids are debating the purpose of a school. “Teaching social skills,” they suggest. Why do you need them? I ask, playing devil’s advocate. “To get a job.” Is that the only point of having social skills? “Yes, what else is there?” [...]

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finishing a master’s thesis on narratives of queer youth activism

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If prices are falling then we’ve a sign that there’s over-production relative to demand.
The pay premium earned by postgraduates and those who take masters degrees is in decline as the market becomes flooded, research suggests today.
The study, commissioned by the British Library and the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), found that the benefit [...]

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Yes, excellent, let’s do it, eh?
Finnish schools are the inspiration behind some of the Conservatives’ planned education reforms to raise the qualifications and status of teaching in England, turning it in David Cameron’s words into a “noble profession”.
So, what are the distinctive bits of the Finnish school structure?
Education after primary school is divided into vocational [...]

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Fiona Millar says something that rather blows my mind. OK, she’s talking about Boy Dave’s silliness about teacher qualifications but this does still shock at tad:
With its explicit condemnation of non-academic courses taken in non-Russell Group universities,
What in buggery is any university, that epitome of academia, doing teaching non-academic subjects?
That’s the whole point of a [...]

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Peter Preston:
Why did schools take wildly different decisions about the snow? Because Ed Balls passed the buck
More centralisation in the British education system.
Oh yes.
The Minister in Whitehall really does have the knowledge to decide upon the weather conditions at each and every school in the country by 8 am each day.
Oh yes.

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Yah, y’know, it’s all about class innit?
Private schools perpetuate privilege and thus we should….well, what?
How about sorting out the State schools so that those with any aspiration for their children don’t flee them?
How about even demolishing the distinction? Get the State out of the provision of education and leave it to simply finance it? Then [...]

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They could be plunged into “special measures” by Ofsted under new rules that place equality on a par with exam results and child safety for the first time.
Are we entirely sure that when a startling number leave 11 years of compulsory education without being able to read, write or [...]

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Almost one million Scots are unable to read and write properly, according to an influential group of educationalists who have called for an overhaul of the country’s approach to literacy.
According to the Literacy Commission — which also includes business leaders and the novelist Ian Rankin — about a fifth of adults do [...]

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Britain has plummeted to the foot of an international league table for the number of young people remaining in education beyond the age of 15, according to research. It has been overtaken by Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Hungary and New Zealand in major rankings showing the number of teenagers in college and university.
The University and [...]

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All children should be taught in mixed-ability classes to boost standards and self-esteem among all students, according to a report.
Uhn hunh……where does this come from?
The study, by Teach First, which recruits top graduates as trainee teachers in tough inner-city schools,
Hmm….and of course “top graduates” who go off and work [...]

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An education Bill to be unveiled in the Queen’s Speech on Wednesday will create a set of pupil and parent “guarantees” for the first time – outlining what families can expect from the state school system in England.
D’ye know, looking through them, I can’t actually see that they’re promising [...]

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My Noble Lord Mandelson of Fop seems not to understand the very basics of what he is doing.
He said universities would have to engage more with business, and involve employers more in both course design and the funding of degrees. “Universities are not islands, they are not ivory towers, they have to respond to the [...]

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Any link between skin colour and brain power was long ago disproved by science.
Hesitant though I am to argue with a scientist of Steve Jones’ standing, this isn’t actually true.
We can see links between average brain power of this group as against that group very easily. And yes, many of those groups are delineated by [...]

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Israel Moiseevich Gelfand was born into a Jewish family in the small southern Ukrainian town of Okny (now Krasniye Okny) in what was then the Russian Empire, on September 2 1913. Although he showed early brilliance in mathematics, he was expelled from school in his mid-teens [...]

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Channel university savings into intensive one-to-one help for the youngest: once every seven-year-old can read, write and add up, the rest of education is easy.
The second part of that sentence actually makes sense. Congratulations.
So, let’s look around the world and see if there are any other education systems that manage this, getting every 7 year [...]

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