Readin' Ritin' & 'Rithmatic

Everyone seems to be getting hot under the collar about education, Pob wants to turn education back to the 50's, the CBI are having a go, so I thought that I would give my two pennyworth!
Education is a political football that is being kicked around for ages.  Qualifications that kids work hard to attain are one minute suitable, the next abolished as they were not fit for purpose.  The most recent example of this is Pob's ideas about I.T. encouraged by some successful computer programmers who say that all the students that start an I.T. course at University are unable to code, because they have not been taught it at school.  Pob's idea was to scrap the current qualifications and start again last September.  Has this happened?  No.  Why?  As there wasn't enough time to design and bring in the necessary information for all teachers to be up and running in the few months that this was being talked about.  On the back of this the "Raspberry Pi" was developed and put on sale to get children programming, but the demand outstripped supply massively, and I do not know the latest situation.

We are meant to be returning to O and A Levels where everything depends on a final exam, none of this modular crap!
Teachers only teach to the test is another thing that is being tossed around.  Well what are teachers supposed to do?  If they do not teach to the test, then large number of students fail, and they get the sack!
The CBI want 16 year old's that can fit into the spaces that industry has for them.  What spaces?  We are in the middle of one of the worst recessions for nearly 100 years, carefully managed by Gideon and the Bullingham Boys, i.e. the Tory Party, and youth unemployment is at an all time high!
There is one development that has arrived in Hull that might be of interest, Hull Studio School has opened its doors.  This is a school where they learn about the workplace, and their G.C.S.E.'s are embedded in their program.  It is part of Hull College.  My prediction is that the kids that go here will be much more employable than kids that go to Wyke or Wilberforce.  This is because of the links that Hull College has with industry in this city, and because of the regime that Studio Schools run.  Do a 'Google search' if you want to know more.