Michael Gove

Pommy politicians are the best troughers in the world. Check out Ed Balls gold medal troughing effort:

Ed Balls’ ministerial office spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on fine-dining at smart hotels and restaurants, £150-worth of takeaways from Domino’s pizza and shopping at department store chain John Lewis.

Spending on Mr Balls’ office credit card has been released covering the period when he was Schools secretary from 28 June 2007 to 11 May 2010.

The lavish spending has echoes of the credit card bill run by the private office of Lord Prescott when he was deputy Prime Minister.

The details of the spending on the government procurement card were released following a Freedom of Information request from Tom Watson MP, the Labour party’s deputy chairman.

Mr Watson had asked for the spending for the past two years – covering Michael Gove’s time as education secretary – however the Coalition decided to release credit card spending figures going back to April 2006.

In all the disclosures showed that Mr Balls’ office spent around £9,000 during his three years in office, with most of the cash going on travel receipts.  Read more »

Michael Gove is really taking it to the teacher unions in the UK.

I seriously doubt he cuddles up to them at conferences.

I reckon a swap might be in order.

At education, for example, Michael Gove is seeking to reintroduce high standards, discipline, respect for knowledge and a sense of history into British schools, to the horror and dismay of the trade unions and the progressive Left.  Read more »

Michael Gove delivers up one great big long pommy sledge against Ed Miliband.

Charter Schools are big in the UK and offer all sorts of differing education methodologies, bringing freedom of choice to education, and removing control from under the thumb of the teacher unions.

An unorthodox secondary school offering “cross-subject projects” rather than traditional classroom lessons, is among the latest tranche of free schools to be approved.

XP school in Doncaster is one of the 102 new free schools given the go-ahead to open next year by Michael Gove, the education secretary, a slight decrease on the 109 schools opening this year.

XP’s prospective chair of governors, Gwyn ap Harri – a former computer science teacher who went on to start a company selling educational software – says the school’s teaching method is based on how learning takes places in the “real world”, rather than sitting behind desks.

“We’ll be still be teaching the national curriculum, the kids will still be doing GCSEs and A-levels. But the way we deliver the curriculum will be totally different,” Harri said.  Read more »

Teacher Unions are the same the world over. They all believe that their education sectors are “national treasures” despite results and empirical evidence to the contrary.

Every now and then a politician comes along to challenge them and they become public enemy number one for daring to challenge the status quo.

Michael Gove was ridiculed by the president of the National Association of Head Teachers, who compared him to a hyperactive personal trainer.

“At times it feels as though we are at the whim of some kind of fanatical personal trainer, constantly urging us all to go faster, faster, higher and higher on a constant treadmill,” Bernadette Hunter told delegates attending the organisation’s annual conference in Birmingham.  Read more »

UK education minister, Michael Gove, continues to terrorise Britain’s militant teachers.

He wants to make them work longer, and have shorter holidays.

This guy should get a knighthood. I hope the NZEI are watching.

Schools should increase teaching hours and cut the length of traditional holidays because the education system is being “handicapped” by a 19th century timetable, Michael Gove warned today.

The Education Secretary said all schools should follow the example set in the Far East where pupils are expected to follow a longer day and get less time off.  Read more »

Teacher unions are the same the world over. Intent on patch protection, covering for the indolent, always seeking tenure and avoiding responsibility. They oppose any and all education reform just because they can.

They always claim they are “thinking of the kids” but in reality it is all about them.

There isn’t an education system in the world that benefits from teacher unions.

A motion of no-confidence in Education Secretary Michael Gove is to be debated by members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) later.

Members of the NUT and the NASUWT are holding their annual conferences this weekend.

The NUT, meeting in Liverpool, is expected to hold votes on Mr Gove and Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw.  Read more »

Michael Gove is on a mission…to improve British education standards and getting in his way as usual are the teacher unions. He calls them “the enemies of promise“.

Exactly 75 years ago the great English writer and thinker, Cyril Connolly, published his most famous book –  The Enemies Of Promise. Connolly’s work explores the ways in which the talented individuals of his time were prevented from achieving their full potential.

It’s time someone produced an update. Because there are millions of talented young people  being denied the opportunity to succeed as they deserve. Far too many are having their potential thwarted by a new set of Enemies Of Promise.

The new Enemies Of Promise are a set of politically motivated individuals who have been actively trying to prevent millions of our poorest children getting the education they need.

All too familiar…same problem here.  Read more »

Any time any government anywhere tries public sector reform they meet a wall of resistance from the tenured bureaucracy…even when that bureaucracy is smashed and defeated they start on rear-guard actions and even guerrilla actions in order to handicap and white-ant policy.

They care little for democracy…thinking they know best. Nowhere is this more evident than in the health and education sectors.

According to the socialists, the only people qualified to comment on public policy in health and education are conveniently those who suck from the systems in need of reform, and the unions who give them sustenance.