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The Conservatives' proposal to extend school hours, announced by Michael Gove in our interview with the shadow schools secretary today, is a welcome idea that deserves serious consideration. Mr Gove highlights the gulf between the hours of teaching and homework in the private sector, where longer days and saturday morning classes are the norm, and the short days of state secondary schools. Longer hours are a little-acknowledged component of the private sector's superior exam results.
Such significant changes to the school timetable will take determination to push through: they would be bound to provoke the ire of the teaching unions. Part of the Government's inability to drive up standards has been its unwillingness to take on these unions, a key sector of the Party's grass roots. Yet provided there is sufficient investment in teacher numbers, there is no good reason why hours of tuition could not be extended. It would require flexibility from teachers, although no more than that demanded already of most private sector workers - none of whom enjoy teachers' long holidays.
Mr Gove's proposals mark the latest stage in his transformation of Tory education policy, which has moved beyond shibboleths such as grammar schools to offer ideas aimed squarely at the mainstream of state secondary education. He sees longer hours as part of a revitalised city academies programme, for example - in contrast to the Government's half-hearted approach to the academies. Schools secretary Ed Balls will need to respond to such fresh thinking if he is to convince London parents that he has a credible strategy to improve standards.
Drunk London
THE EXTENT of the capital's drink problem is clear from the expansion of the Ambulance Service's "booze bus" operation that we report today. Until now, the service for people suffering minor injuries or collapse from alcohol has been available only at times such as New Year's Eve; now it will run year round to cope with some of the capital's annual 60,000 alcohol-related calls. Yet despite such drunken excesses being repeated every weekend in town centres all over the country, the Government's policy remains fundamentally confused.
Ministers have never resolved the contradiction between their stated desire to cut binge drinking and their liberalisation of opening hours. Since the Licensing Act 2003 came into force, its aim of ushering in a continental-style drinking culture has manifestly failed. With fanfare, Gordon Brown announced a review of the law shortly after becoming Prime Minister; it concluded last March that despite the chaotic situation reported by police and council leaders, there was no case for changing the law. This week, the Prime Minister rejected a proposal from the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, for a mimumum price per unit of alcohol.
In short, the Government appears to have no policy on curbing binge drinking, beyond laudable but ineffective efforts to educate people and token appeals to the drinks industry to act more responsibly. Certainly, many of London's pubs and bars do need to be more proactive, but until ministers revisit licensing hours, and take a harder line with the industry, the booze bus will stay full.
Dignity in sorrow
The family of Natasha Richardson, the actress who died this week after a freak skiing accident, have shown remarkable dignity in their public response to her death. Last night her husband, Liam Neeson, and mother, Vanessa Redgrave, attended a tribute on Broadway: the street's lights were dimmed. Ms Richardson's family have suffered the most sudden and shocking of losses, yet they have managed to combine their desire for privacy with a dignified acknowledgment of the public reaction to her death. For that, they deserve our respect as well as our sympathy.
Reader views (1)
Private sector schools in the UK have longer working weeks than state schools in terms of hours, but they have much longer holidays to compensate. The elephant in the room is pupil behaviour, unacceptable attitudes of a significant minority of state sector students, lack of parent support in state schools and MPs who constantly interfere by imposing their own 'good ideas' on schools. The image of state school parents handing burgers to their kids through a school fence to flout a school's 'sensible eating' policy is worth more than a thousand words.
Teachers in the UK do NOT enjoy long holidays - a significant part of those 'holidays' is spent preparing for the next term and recovering from the previous term.
Teaching in a state school is hard work due to the approach of the current government, always focused on frequently-silly targets and rarely trusting teachers to act professionally.
- Kiwi Expat, London, UK
