Third Class

‘IT might be marginally outside the catchment area, but little Leo Blair could be on his way to school in Slovakia.

‘If you want to come to this university, tick the box marked ‘yes”

There he will be able to learn many interesting things. Sure, he’ll have to forgo that GCSE is Benefits Claiming and the A-level in Faliraki Studies, but he will learn how to read and write.

Rightly, the Sun salutes Slovakia, as it does Greece, Hungary New Zealand and South Korea, which now heads the world league table of secondary schools.

Yes, the league table is no British curiosity - it’s been taken up by the world at large. Where we lead, others follow.

The Express casts an eye over the table produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which has 32 members.

Britain’s position at number 22 on the list puts it, in the Mail’s eyes, in the category of Third World. It also makes the Government’s target of getting half of all under-30s a university education harder to achieve.

As Andreas Schleicher of the OECD says: “Ultimately what you get in universities depends on what you produce in schools.” That doesn’t bode well.

But today Leo has produced a very nice collage of farmyard animals, A Study in Colour And Spit. It’s sure to get him into dad’s old college…’

Posted: 17th, September 2003 | In: Tabloids Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink