The Square Mile and Me: M Restaurants founder Martin Williams on backpack etiquette and mandatory two hour lunches
Cameron right to back strivers – but words aren’t enough October 10, 2012 LET us hope David Cameron actually means what he says. His speech to the Tory party conference yesterday was the best he has made in years. He outlined a different vision for Britain, appealing to the strivers who want to work hard and get on in life, a crucial audience whose disenchantment with the Tories [...]
Business back Gove’s exam plans September 18, 2012 BUSINESS leaders last night welcomed the decision to replace GCSEs with a new English Baccalaureate Certificate as the national test for 16- year-olds, a move that the government says will end “the race to the bottom” in exam standards. Education secretary Michael Gove announced yesterday that children will begin studying for the “EBacc’”qualifications in September [...]
Gove’s reforms will help better equip young people for life September 18, 2012 BRITAIN’S poor educational standards are a national scandal and a key reason why the UK’s productivity continues to lag. The problem is not with graduates of our top universities, though even they could do better. The real crisis is that thousands of school leavers and even, in some cases, graduates from other universities, end up [...]
Scrapping dysfunctional GCSEs will return rigour to British classrooms September 17, 2012 CONSIDERING the howls of outrage that greeted this year’s GCSE results, the reaction to Michael Gove’s new English Baccalaureate Certificate has been surprisingly muted. This is not altogether surprising: GCSEs are corrupt and corrupting, and it’s hard to find a teacher with anything good to say about them. Under New Labour, ministers showed little evidence [...]
Small businesses lament lack of basic skills in young staff August 22, 2012 SMALL BUSINESSES are sceptical about how ready school leavers are for work, according to a survey released by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) yesterday. A full eight out of ten did not think school leavers were fit for employment, and that more must be done to get them into shape. Fifteen and 16 year [...]
An underwhelming reshuffle which did not go far enough September 4, 2012 COALITION 2.0: that is our front page headline today, and it sums up what this reshuffle is all about. This was an incremental, almost minor reshuffle, not the revolutionary shift that this government really needed, with most of the most important, cabinet-level jobs still controlled by the same people and economic policy changing not one [...]
Exam targets shouldn’t be prioritised at the expense of a decent education August 28, 2012 THE highly emotional debate still raging about GCSE grades is not very enlightening. But what has happened tells us a lot about how incentives matter, and how they affect outcomes. At the same time, it shows us that unless a proper set of social norms is in place, incentives can have unanticipated, perverse effects. In [...]
Businesses back return of O-levels June 21, 2012 BUSINESS groups last night welcomed the news that education secretary Michael Gove wants to drop GCSEs and bring back traditional O-level exams in an attempt to boost academic rigour. “Businesses have steadily lost confidence in the ability of the education system to deliver young people who are ready for the world of work,” said Adam [...]
RAPID responses June 24, 2012 Return to O-levels [Re: Cameron must back Gove for the sake of Britain’s children, Friday] Michael Gove’s proposal isn’t perfect, but it’s an improvement on the failing system we have today – a de facto two-tier system of double-digit top grades and a long list of failures. Let’s hope Gove can defeat his third-rate political [...]
Make Britain the home of the brave June 24, 2012 ON FRIDAY, Neil Carmichael MP from the education select committee, hosted a debate in the House of Commons on how innovative further education could better equip the workforce of the future. A pertinent subject, following the revelation of Michael Gove’s plans for education reform. Entrepreneurs can provide an interesting perspective. Friday’s event came on the [...]