EDUCATION Secretary Estelle Morris should not be blamed for A-level regrading. Specialist schools are a good thing, but the private finance initiative needs to be sold to a sceptical public. At least that was the verdict of delegates spoken to by the TES.
Lynn Glaister, 41, from Cardiff, said: “Things were in danger of getting damaging for Estelle Morris last week, but not now. I suspect ministers wanted assurances there would not be the same sort of fiasco we had in Scotland a couple of years ago, got those assurances and left it at that. I do not think they intervened in ordering papers to be downgraded.”
Ruth Barber, 28, from Slough, said: “I went to a comprehensive and there are good and bad things about the system. I think specialist schools are a good idea. People should be educated in settings where they feel their talents can be developed. I do not think that is the case within conventional comprehensive schools. The Government should be offering pupils specialist vocational education of the standard they have in Germany.”
Steven Syme, 30, from Nottingham, said: “I voted against the private finance initiative. You hear horror stories about people being sacked under these contracts, or of hospitals’ roofs leaking. There may be dozens of good stories out there, but what I would say to the Government is: ‘tell us about them, sell us the policy’. More needs to be done to convince both the Party and general public that this is right.”
Leonard Ahern, from West Dorset, said: “A lot of people get PFI mixed up with privatisation. They are completely different. This is the only way of getting schools and hospitals built. It is a good thing.”
