Education

On entering government in 1997, Tony Blair and David Blunkett set about transforming primary education. It was a sorry state of affairs that we inherited. In Maths and English, only 59% and 65% of pupils respectively, were reaching the expected level of learning outcomes in these core subjects. When we left government in 2010, the figures were 79% and 80%. This was great progress and indeed more needs to be done to raise achievement and aspiration for all young people. There is cross party agreement on this. We can all agree that raising standards during primary education increases the life chances for young people in later life. The disagreement comes

When I was at secondary school my lunch usually consisted of a packet of Space Raiders and a Toffee Crisp, washed down with a healthy can of Dr Pepper, at least until I started spending the lunch money on fags. And look at me now – a strapping hulk of a man with teeth like Donny Osmond. Partly the reason I avoided school dinners was because they looked, smelled and tasted like something served up in Attica Penitentiary; that seems to have improved, as has the quality of food across British society. But many people prefer packed lunches, large proportions of which are apparently devoid of nutrition and presumably contribute

Whenever I return to my old university, I am always struck by how incredibly focused, purposeful and studious everyone seems to be. It fills me with despair. It’s hard to tell the difference between a university and a business school nowadays. Where are all the hippies, the potheads and the commies? And why is everyone so intently serious and sober all the time? ‘Oh, it’s simple,’ a friend explained. ‘If you don’t get a 2:1 or a first nowadays, employers won’t look at your CV.’ So, as a keen game-theorist, I struck on an idea. Recruiting next year’s graduate intake for Ogilvy would be easy. We could simply place ads

Earlier this week, I was part of a panel on Newsnight Scotland discussing the latest – some would say, belated – efforts designed to improve Glasgow’s dismally underachieving state schools. That they need improvement is beyond doubt. In Scotland’s largest city, only 7% of state-educated pupils leave school with five good Higher passes. In Scotland as a whole a mere 220 children from the poorest 20% of neighbourhoods achieved three As at Higher (the minimum grades required for admission to leading universities such as St Andrews). As I said on the programme, this should be considered a national scandal. More than that, a disgrace. (Like Fraser, I wish more people

One of the very good things about Lord Ashcroft is that he is happy to commission large-scale opinion polls. Sometimes these are mischievous. Take today’s example, for instance. It is always useful to be reminded that most members of the public can only recognise a handful of politicians. One would expect David Cameron and Boris Johnson to be at the top of the public recognition table. They are the only politicians in Britain recognised – and correctly identified – by more than 90% of those surveyed. 89% of respondents claim to recognise Ed Miliband but only 77% can actually identify him (some think he’s actually his brother which, given David

One of the most rewarding exercises a Latinist can attempt is to turn a piece of English prose into Latin. The reason is quite simple: it means getting under the surface of the English meaning — to ‘get beyond the word to the thought behind it’ (Gilbert Murray) — and transferring it into a form most closely corresponding to a Roman way of thinking and writing. It takes one to the very heart of how Romans made sense of their world. Only someone with a supreme understanding of the Latin language and its culture can do that effectively. That master prose-composer Colin Leach was once asked in an exam to

When I was a child there was never any doubt that I would go to a boarding school. My father, my uncle and my elder brother had all gone to Eton, and it was assumed that I would eventually go there, too; but I would first be expected to board at a preparatory school with a good record for getting its pupils into that famous establishment. And so it was that from the age of 8 to 18 I spent more than half of every year away from home, living in communities of other boys in the care not of parents but of schoolmasters. My two sisters went to boarding