Not-so-Nu-Labour's Office for Educational Improvement

Trying to separate images of brawling boxers and Eurozone politicians thrashing out deals on Greek debt this morning, emanating from the radio, news that Not-so-Nu-Labour says it would set up an Office for Educational Improvement immediately caught my attention. Stephen Twigg outlined their thinking and being incapable of multi-tasking as well as honest enough to admit it, I put the daughters’ school lunches on hold, and listened eagerly for some sign that at long last, someone was going to try and purge education of the politics that plagues it.

Twigg talked about creating a body which would independently advise the government on educational standards so that the best international research could be used to inform policy. Sarah Montague asked the obvious question about partisan, pay-the-piper research and as the interview progressed I realised the lunches were far more important than listening to the birth throes of yet another parasitic Quango.

If one cares to read it (and I seriously think that is perhaps what’s wrong here: contemporary politicians aren’t much into reading) the world is awash with high quality, genuinely academic research on education to guide their policy. Sadly all I heard was more of the same old jobs-for-mates mentality that has brought Greece to its knees, if not its senses.