Michael Gove Is Useless

GOVE IN TROUBLE

Alright, sonny...you're nicked. I'm arresting you for crimes
against the nation's children. You're not obliged to say
anything, but whatever you say will be complete bollocks,
as usual. Get in the car, there's a good boy...

I woke up this morning in 2012 and then saw what Gove is up to and realised that I'd been transported back to 1970. As a product of the 60s/70s grammar school system, I think that I can be "wise after the event", as the saying goes.

It seems to me that Michael Gove wants a return to those days, whilst dressing up his approach to curriculum nazism as an aid to social mobility. That's just bollocks. Let's all do our times tables then, shall we? Moreover, let's all do them in a duodecimal system, like we need the separated joints of our fingers to count once again, because there are no calculators or 'apps' for that. And let's also ignore the fact that everything is now decimal, and more simplistic as a result. And let's all be able to quote some Shakespeare, or Browning, or Auden, because that will enable young people to impress potential employers along with being able to recite their seven times table.

And this week, Gove announces that he'll be "consulting" on a programme to change GCSEs into...something else. And for "consulting", read "telling". And for "something else", read "O-Levels". Every kid that's taking GCSEs at the moment can learn this week that all of their hard work was pointless, as Gove relegates GCSEs into the second division of examination awards because he doesn't see them as the "gold standard" that every child deserves to be measured by in order that they can get a job (that doesn't exist in reality, because Giddy hasn't fixed everything, like he promised to).

It's not even as if there was a hint of Gove being well-intentioned in all of this. It's more like he's just recalling all of the really shit things that happened to him at school (Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen) and is making policy so that everyone else has to experience the horrors that he did, before he went to Oxford and began his unstoppable trajectory into the political class and gained his seat in parliament as the member for Surrey Heath, the constituency for the true scot that he is, of course. I used to detest Michael Gove just because he's a tory, looks and acts like one and appears to have no empathy with anyone...oh, and he's married to Sarah Vine and he's a convenient QPR supporter, allegedly. But now I have something for which it makes it easy (and right) to really detest him.

Having worked very briefly in secondary education, I have the utmost respect and regard for the majority of teachers. When I was at school, before computers, mobile phones and the ubiquitous social media (actually, it was almost before ball point pens), it was we, the pupils, that demonstrated that regard and respect for most of the teachers, even though a lot of that was based upon fear. These days, teachers have to fight their battles on a variety of fronts and a new one has opened up, led by Gove.

The battle lines are also drawn against the pupils (or is it 'students', now?) and parents. My parents were in awe of teachers whereas now, mummies and daddies treat them like the lowest form of public servant, and they are encouraged to do so by the likes of Gove, who wants everyone to have 'choices' and to hold the educators to account if little Johnny or Mary doesn't go to Oxford and get a first in classics become a CEO of a plc by age twenty-three. Education is, regrettably, a market - just like everything else nowadays. If you can pay, then there's a way. And if you can't, then you get what's left on offer, usually from lowest bidder. Idiotic parents are encouraged by the likes of Gove to believe that they can change all of this. Well, they can't. A significant minority of parents don't give a toss anyway and just see school as seven or eight hours of free daily childcare so that they can slob about watching Jeremy Kyle expose and berate people that are just like them. Their idea of social mobility is a state-funded electric scooter to carry their morbidly obese carcass to the offie and back.

Gove has some spectacularly daft ideas, and he's not alone. When we are governed by a cabinet of mostly privileged, rich members of the political elite who have never held down a job or known what it's like to even worry a little bit about money, then we're not going to get the sort of policy-driven change that will be any use to the majority of people in Britain. Most of it is knee-jerk stuff, anyway, in the face of the intense media scrutiny that makes it pretty difficult to govern anyway, so when you lay on top of that the inexperience within the cabinet it makes for a grim outlook. And the 'First Division' senior civil servants are cut from the same cloth so we can't expect the Sir Humphrys to advise any more sensibly. Take this silly business about Jimmy Carr's tax affairs. There'll be a knee-jerk into some kind of tax avoidance legislation soon enough, conveniently ignoring the fact that David Cameron can owe a lot of his present, personal liquidity to the proceeds of an offshore family fund. "Morally wrong"? Carr just hired an accountant like most of his peer-group but has been hung out to dry. I imagine he'll be able to turn it into some good material, though, if he's ever allowed back on the telly. Oh, I forgot, most of his stuff's on Channel 4... 

Gove's plans are not knee-jerk reactions, though. No! He's actually thought these through and decided that they still made sense; which makes it all the more worrying.

Instead of messing about with the examination system, the curriculums, academies and 'free' schools, Gove might be better off seeking to adapt our education system with a view to providing the skills that we actually need to make Britain a better place to live in and do business with. When the Chinese trade delegation come here looking for excellence in manufacturing and are presented with a bunch of graduate 'managers' that can't tell the difference between soldering and welding but can do a nice recital from Ovid, then we know we're fucked.

As for our democratic right to chuck Gove into the dustbin of history in 2015, then our alternative at present is Stephen Twigg MP, Gove's shadow in opposition. And guess what? Twigg's degree was achieved in PPE at Oxford (Balliol), and then straight into the political class. The only difference I can perceive between Gove and Twigg is that the latter was once president of the National Union of Students whereas Gove was president of the Oxford Union. Oh, and Gove is straight. Other than that...? 

GOVE'S VISION:

THIS...

...OR THIS?

YOU DECIDE...