"This summer, at least 25,000 children will drop out of English schools without a single qualification to show for their years of compulsory education. Some 240,000 will graduate from primary school unable to read or write properly. By autumn, some 250 schools judged to be failing will welcome an intake of new pupils. Youth unemployment will probably hit an 11-year high. It will, tragically, be just another year in one of the world’s highest-funded education systems." The Spectator
Sounds like they are speaking about the Bahamian public schools doesn't it? But it is an article in the Spectator magazine by Fraser Nelson about the British educational system sent around recently by fellow blogger Joan Thompson.
A long time advocate of vouchers in education, she writes in her e-mail with a link to the article:
Note the ironic and dramatic new focus on education in the UK.
I do not have the Bahamas Minister of Educations e-mail, but were he to read what is being considered in the UK he might be encouraged to take a different view of the role of the state in providing education.
If we hope for a better educated populace, it must begin with downsizing (privatization) education.
The irony is that a centrally managed controlled economy like Sweden found a constructive solution.
Anyone hoping for improvement in Bahamian Public school education may be encouraged to take an optimistic view that real change can occur.
It is ironic that Dr. Milton Friedman's 53 year old idea of vouchers has been working in Sweden now since 1992 and is barely making strides in American schools. But it is great to see that Britain would consider vouchers as a viable alternative to the morass of their educational system.
Is it possible that The Bahamas government would take the lead in the region in an attempt to improve our failing schools?
Read the entire Spectator article here...
For more background on this important subject click here...; here...; and here...
