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Anorak News | A Qualified Success

A Qualified Success

by | 5th, July 2004

‘WHEN Tony Blair promises freedom, he normally delivers it at the end of an albeit non-firing gun.

‘And here’s some more freedom’

So teachers and pupils should be somewhat alarmed this morning to discover that the Prime Minister is promising schools more freedom to run their own affairs.

The Telegraph says that Blair has won a Cabinet power struggle to offer parents more choice and allow popular schools to expand.

However, the ungrateful head teachers claim the Government’s proposals amount to ‘smoke and mirrors’, creating the illusion of freedom.

They wanted more freedom, they said, ‘not at the expense of the school down the road, but by a reduction in central government prescription, which has led to 67 different streams of funding and accountability’.

You give schools freedom and it turns out that it’s the wrong kind of freedom; you offer parents choice and all of a sudden they want a choice of what choices they have.

Perhaps, like those ungrateful Iraqis, they’d be a bit happier if the freedom came wrapped in the Stars & Stripes and dropped from a B-52.

Happier news, however, for students in the Guardian, which reports that a British website is offering a full set of GCSEs, A-levels and fake degrees for £165.

Given that a separate report in the Independent suggests that the average student will earn £1,568 over the summer (mainly by working behind a bar or in a shop), we could soon have the most qualified workforce in the western world.

The Guardian said it managed to get a medical degree from Oxford University, a BA from the University of Strathclyde and a full set of GCSEs (all naturally A-grade) in the name of a student still awaiting his real results.

And the wonder of it all is that the man responsible – a Liverpool forger by the name of Peter Leon Quinn – is not doing anything illegal.

Stuart Pudney, a North Yorkshire trading standards officer, said he had no idea how many people had bought degrees, but he suggested it must be quite a lot.

‘And £165 is a lot of money for a degree,’ he added. ‘You don’t do that for fun or if you’re going to put it on your wall.’

No, that’s called a media studies degree…’



Posted: 5th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink