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OK Polly, OK, you win

Channel university savings into intensive one-to-one help for the youngest: once every seven-year-old can read, write and add up, the rest of education is easy.

The second part of that sentence actually makes sense. Congratulations.

So, let\’s look around the world and see if there are any other education systems that manage this, getting every 7 year old essentially literate and numerate.

Hmm. What\’s that? You say the Finnish system does this? Or the Swedish? Italian? Korean, Japanese?

I\’ve no idea whether they do or not but if we find one that does then we need to ask the next question. How do they manage this? Is it by spending more money per pupil? I know, for example, that the Finnish system does not.

Ah, thus we come back to our old favourite. It isn\’t how much money you spend, it is how you spend it that matters. I certainly think hte UK school system could be better: so let\’s go and copy the systems which are better shall we, rather than simply screaming that we must spend more money?

7 thoughts on “OK Polly, OK, you win”

  1. Arriving here after 20 years in Japan, one thing I don’t understand is: Why is it the culture here to separate schooling and family life? Whether state or private, Brits seem to think it is the near-sole responsibility of the school to educate their kids. And the school’s are happy with this generally – trust us, we’re the professionals.

    In Japan this gap does not exist in such a form – families are much involved in school stuff and in educating their kids out of school.

  2. I seem to recall that children in Sweden/Finland don’t even start school until they are 6, so if they are reading by 7 I doubt it has much to do with primary schooling.

    It’s not the money, it’s the parents.

  3. > It’s not the money, it’s the parents.

    Ding Ding we have a winner!

    So how can we ensure that bad potential parents don’t have (as many) children?

    How can we identify bad potential parents?

  4. The poxy parents of tomorrow, are the offspring of the poxy parents of today. The high school teachers can tell you who they are.

    In fact the infant school teachers can look at an intake of kids, and their parent, take into account who isn’t toilet trained, or using spoken language, and give us a fairly good idea of which ones are going to wind up in prison.

  5. I think you are unfair here .Polly does not make Policy its a think piece and if the investment doesnot matter then why not take the lot away ?
    She has got a good point , why is further education so incredibly expensive , why are we not trying harder where it counts ?

    Ceteris Paribus more cash helps

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