HARDLY a day passes without some damning report pointing to the desperate failure of state educashun in the UK.
And now the teachers have started going on strike for more pay (even though teachers’ pay is already the envy of most folk, as are their massively generous holidays and their gold-plated pensions).
I have no sympathy at all for the striking teachers, but my heart goes out to youngsters attending state schools these days – because as a society we have failed them so very badly indeed.

After 10 ten years of chaotic reforms under New Labour rule, state schools are still churning out youngsters who pitifully ill-prepared for life.
That’s a great shame as it will bring us endless trouble and misery in the years ahead.
Already more than a third of employers are worried about the ability of their staff to read, write and add up correctly.
Some new recruits to the employment pool are staggeringly, dangerously thick – though I don’t propose to go into the details contained in the recent Confederation of British Industry report on the abilities of those who seek employment.
And now the Government is told that the new vocational diplomas being introduced as substitutes for A levels and GCSEs are likely to be useless because teachers have not been properly trained to operate them and, anyway, the diploma tests might be too tough for mega-dim British teenagers.
Now, I am not the sort of blogger to paint a grim picture without suggesting how to improve things, so here goes, my FIVE sure-fire way to improve things.
FIRST: Fire at least half of the teachers currently employed. For sure! They have, after all, proved themselves quite useless.
SECOND: Re-hire teachers from abroad (from the US, Australia and Canada, where teachers aren’t as utterly demoralised and beaten as they are here).
THIRD: Make it legal for schools to reintroduce the cane. Unless kids experience fear of physical chastisement they will never know respect – or wisdom (more of that late).
FOURTH: Introduce the new Sir Steve Regan National Curriculum, including compulsory training in…
- Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (absolutely essential, as must be obvious, even to a moron in a hurry)
- Personal Hygiene (because, yes, things have got so bad under millions of feckless parents)
- Cooking and Household Chores for Boys AND Girls (obviously)
- Personal Finance for Boys and Girls (because they will have to live in the real world and, at the very least - especially in Wirral and Merseyside - have to understand how the benefits system works or how to wangle a job doing not very much with the local council when they leave school
- British and World History (with 80 per cent of the lessons focused on British history – and not the wishy-washy re-written history so beloved of the Liberal Fascists in the teaching unions.
- Religious Instruction, with an 80 per cent focus on Christianity, because that’s the faith that very largely built our nation, though we must also include some teaching about the basics of all world faiths, with special emphasis on their moral teaching (because British youngsters are in dire need of moral training, which brings me to…)
FIFTH. Philosophy! I regard this as such a vitally important subject to be taught in schools that I have devoted a whole section of this posting to it. Because, as Epicurus remarked: “Philosophy is an activity which, though discourse and reasoning, procures for us a happy life.”
* The main branch of philosophy that ought to be taught is ethics, because in a world where religious faith is diminished as a backdrop to most people’s lives, we need something else (a back-up, if you like) to help us make choices about what to do and how to behave in a way that is good for us - and good for the survival and dignity of society as a whole.
* I would also teach what the philosophical masters said about politics. We owe it to ourselves to understand what politics is, and how, ultimately, it is the opposite of war and barbarism. We have a duty to be involved in it or at least informed about it.
* Pupils must learn what the greats said about love. It isn’t just about snogging, funsex and condoms. Young people need to know about the different forms of love – eros, philia, and agape.
* And we all need to be taught to think as deeply as we can, philosophically, about death, freedom, knowledge, art, humanity and wisdom.
* It is only by reading and considering in depth what greater minds than ours said about these subjects (starting with Plato and Aristotle) that we can put ourselves on the path to wisdom and happiness.
* The very word philosophy is based on the Greek word philosophia – meaning the love of, or the search for, wisdom.
* And the fact that human life can be so brutal, fragile, precious and dangerous is all the more reason to begin to steep our people in the basics of, and ignite their (hopefully lifelong) interest in, philosophy – as early as possible.

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