A week in the Daily Telegraph...

Graeme Paton, the Education Editor, has written a number of articles, which taken together may tell us much of what is wrong within and outside education:

1) 30th April - "Class sizes for infants increasing". Some of the classes exceeding 30 were illegal, that is did not obtain permission before exceeding the maximum, and the number of these is rising. The overall average class size is also rising.

So what has happened to all the money pumped loudly into Education?

2) 30th April - "English is not the first language for 800,000 children". Of these, 500,000 in junior schools have English as a second language. Given that children of immigrants born here are more likely to have imbibed English from their environment, it suggests that many are relatively recent and from uncontrolled immigration. You do not need to be well acquainted with Education to understand that when a teacher is confronted by a class more fluent in any number of foreign languages, basic education will be handicapped. In some schools, despite attempts to mix backgrounds, over half of all pupils have English as their second language.

3) 5th May - "Bad teachers letting down children". This is actually a quotation from the left wing think tank the Institute of Public Policy Research. They conclude that teacher training fails to filter out those not suited to be teachers. Head teachers , it seems, regularly recycle unacceptable staff between schools, rather than engage in the bureaucratic competency procedures.

4) 5th May - "Children are .. dumped at school for 10 hours", with pre-school and after school activities laid on as child minding. Much of this is because parents are both working, or there is only one parent. We sympathise with parents who need to work despite having young children because of the recent economic policies of Bottler, but it is arguably yet another sign of inadequate parenting.

Such provision is in the name of reducing social deprivation, but also encourages parental deprivation.

5) 5th May - "Primary schools suspend 1,000 under sixes for bad behaviour." The bad behaviour is fighting, swearing or persistent indiscipline. We really have lost the battle if 4 and 5 year olds are beyond reasonable control. The vast majority were for verbal and physical attacks on fellow pupils and teachers, as well as disruptive behaviour. The banishment is temporary and the offenders will soon be back.

Is it surprising that such a large proportion will leave junior school as they fall progressively below the standards expected, especially in English and mathematics? Once in secondary school they will fall further behind and contribute to the anti-social statistics we are familiar with.

6) 30th April "Record numbers at private school". This is in part a consequence of all the other findings above. Parents are turning their backs on the state system. This is despite the rising costs of private education and falling net incomes in some cases. Parents are taking out loans, or mortgaging their homes, because they recognise the failure of the state system.

These items together paint a sorry picture of education in this country, and may go some way towards explaining why our system is now rated so low in international comparisons.

Just before May 1997 Tony said "Education, Education, Education" would be his three priorities. Things have not improved, despite the vast extra money. All sorts of short term changes have been tried. Yet the situation seems to get worse. In part what is happening, or not happening, in homes across the land is beyond his power. Yet even there the unreformed benefit system, and false liberal tolerance is the Government's baleful contribution.