Another political gimmick

Yesterday I wrote about a political gimmick which is to give parents a choice of school for their children. In reality a small minority of parents can buy private education for their children and a few more parents may be able to move house to affect their choice of school. Today I'll talk about another political and educational gimmick, how to sack poor teachers.

This week a white paper tells us teachers will need a licence to teach and this licence must be renewed every five years. Weak teachers will now be weeded out. What is the government trying to say? Do we really have no system in place to weed out weak teachers already? I am sure that there are systems in place that weed out poor teachers already. There must be appraisals, disciplinary procedures and probably (and most commonly) resignations caused by leaning on the teachers, that weed them out.

I don't know what teachers think, but I think it is outrageous that if I were a teacher then members of the public may think I could continue to teach even if I were incompetent. This political gimmick is a slur on the competence of all teachers. Let's stop the licences (and the licence fees), stop the gimmicks, and stop the emphasis on school comparisons so the privileged can manifest their privilege.

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