Nanny Knows Best

Nanny Knows Best
Dedicated to exposing, and resisting, the all pervasive nanny state that is corroding the way of life and the freedom of the people of Britain.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Educashun, Educashun, Educashun

Educashun, Educashun, EducashunNanny believes in choice, so she says, and so long as the "right" people are making the "right" choices then she is happy.

Nanny has a list of "right" people and the "right" choices, these include; people who choose not to smoke, people who choose to lose weight, people who don't drink to "excess", teenagers who "choose" higher educashun rather than unemployment etc.

In other words, Nanny supports the right to choose only when those making the choice align themselves with Nanny's view of the world. The trouble with this approach is that, sometimes, the choices that these favoured individuals and groups make are not necessarily the best for the country as a whole.

One such area where "choice" is leading to catastrophe is that of educashun. Scientists are warning that the announcement at the end of September that the University of Reading's physics department recruits no more students, and closes no later than July 2010, is in fact the thin end of the wedge of the destruction of scientific teaching in the UK.

Over the past ten years 19 physics departments have merged or closed. This is because higher education is now being shaped by the choices of teenagers, and not by government or the needs of the economy.

Peter Main, the science director of the Institute of Physics, said:

"University vice-chancellors are operating in an environment

that is controlled by the choices of 17-year-old students.

Funding follows student numbers

and so the future of Britain's science base

rests on the university choices of sixth-formers.

This is a clear example of market failure.

The Government has to realise

that its aspirations for science will not happen

unless they look again at how university departments are funded;

the current model disadvantages laboratory-based subjects,

especially physics
."

The Commons science and technology committee had already said earlier this year that there was a "fundamental disconnect" between the Government's desire to preserve core undergraduate physics, chemistry, technology, engineering and mathematics and its desire to preserve the autonomy of universities.

Unfortunately, what the scientists and academics don't understand is the fact that Nanny is not really that interested in educashun as such; but she is keen to avert a rise in the unemployment figures. The more teenagers who opt for higher education, rather than signing on as unemployed/unemployable, the better it is for Nanny's headline targets.

Needless to say "hard" subjects, such as science, require a good basic level of education, hard work and enthusiasm; many teenagers these days lack these attributes, as such soft option courses such as media studies have to be funded in order to tempt them to attend 2 hours of lectures a week.

The future's bleak, the future's Nanny.

7 comments:

  1. Bleak future indeed. On the news this morning was an article regarding the 'dumbing down' of science GCSE, such that now Universities don't even recognise it as a step towards 'A' levels and University admission.

    Apparently there is too much focus on matters peripheral to science, rather than on science subjects themselves.

    Whatever happened to reading, riting and rithmatic being taught in school. Blairy and his cronies have much to answer for, haven't they!!

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  2. Anonymous12:22 PM

    Much better the sheep, er, I mean students learn important stuff.

    Like Feminist Theory, Marxist economics, Diversity in Education, The Success of Multi-Culturalism and Non-Sexist Language.

    Nanny is turning the once Great Britain into a nation of idiots.

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  3. Anonymous6:00 PM

    "A market failure?"

    These government types really do not understand free markets in the least.

    But I'm sure things will be much better once they step in to 'fix' things, you know making the correct decisions for both the kids (who are too dumb) and the universities (who have no other option since the market has 'failed' them)

    I wish I could say things were better over on this side of the water.

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  4. Anonymous1:33 AM

    Well, on this side of the Atlantic the Toronto Board of Education is now teaching a course on ethno-centric mathematics.

    I shit you not.

    If 2 Innocent men of Colour are driving down the street at 50 KMH and a Racist Police Officer shoots at them from 65 Meters away, how long (in milliseconds) does it take to kill an Innocent Person of Colour?

    How do you spell slavery?

    (How do you spell Shit-For-Brains?)

    If 2 Americans drive their children to soccer in a gas-guzzling SUV and by doing so they cause 5 African Children to die from Climate Change, how long will it be before the UN declares it a Holoucast?

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  5. Anonymous7:11 AM

    'I think that this dumbing down is being done deliberately so that in a few years the mass of the population will be less well educated that in the 1800's and early 1900's.'

    Consider the following test questions:

    1. Find the product of 3 + 4x + 5x(squared) - 6x(cubed) and 4 - 5x -6x(squared)

    2. Write a sentence containing a noun used as an attributive, a verb in the perfect tense potential mood, and a proper adjective.

    3. Name three events of 1777. Which was the most important and why?

    These questions appeared on an ADMISSIONS test to Jersey City High School in 1885. The students taking this test would have been 15 years old. Compare to today.

    Of course, Nanny would point out that in 1885, not everyone went to high school. Precisely.

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  6. Anonymous10:36 AM

    Anonymous said...


    "If 2 Americans drive their children to soccer in a gas-guzzling SUV and by doing so they cause 5 African Children to die from Climate Change, how long will it be before the UN declares it a Holoucast? "


    Based on the UN responses to date for the Death by Malaria holocaust, much of it based on their prejudices against DDT which itself is based on some somewhat dodgy science from decades ago, one would have to say they will never call it a holocaust.

    On the other hand with the desire to be seen to be politically correct (to whom? one might ask but that is another debate ...) and push all sorts of hair-shirt agendas, any seemingly obvious target will do - providing it offers opportunities for control and influence without any associated responsibility.

    Of course western government - especially European geovernments with their current open door policy trap for immigration - might well think it beneficial to follow policies that offer the opportunity to reduce the number of potential immigrants from Africa whilst at the same time convincing its existing population that they are at fault because they use too much carbon thus creating the chimera of Anthropogenic Only Climate Change.

    This, and a coupld of other creations, are perfect Nanny policy engines for politicans of all colours being unprovable, ever, and relying on long term outcomes (well beyond the needs for the survival of most political careers) even if things change direction dramatically at some point. Better still there is absolutely no likelihood of any personal responsibility coming back to haunt them and the general nature of the beast allows justistification of control measures across all aspects of people's lives.

    No wonder they are all so keen to join in.

    Of course the dumbing down of the population in recent decades has helped enormously. Very few people are asking questions - acceptance is the norm on 'they are the experts' and 'what difference could I make anyway' rationales. The neat thing is that the public, living in a hi-tech world, think that they are smarter than their forebears. In the magic show the audience brings its own smoke and mirrors.

    Railwayman39 has it right. I suspect you out age me sir, by perhaps a generation. But my consolation is that at least I have less of a timeline left for this Nanny rubbish than my kids. Maybe their generation will come to its senses, mine doesn't look like it will.

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  7. I'm not sure that you can blame Nanny for the closure of Physics departments; possibly the products of nannyism are incapable of thought, due to the absolute pointlessness of being able to think in Nanny-world.
    Example-the current IP laws date from 1977(Labour) with revision in 2001(Labour).

    There is no such thing as IP in Britain, unless you own the business that owns the patents.
    The Labour Party idea of pro-business, in other words, is to turn businesses into equally criminal exploiters of the people who can actually do things.

    So nobody chooses to do anything anymore.

    Who said 17 year olds were stupid?
    I don't.

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