Michael Gove axed as Education Secretary

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Reply 80

plusC

Basically this guy

is now this guy

lmao

Reply 81

tj_321

Original post by Guren

So will any of the changes be reversed or changed? Will anything be different? Is this just an attempt to get votes back?

Its just an attempt to get votes. When watching the news they did say its not likely any of the changes will be reversed even though Gove was hated because of the changes! And they also said its not likely that any new radical changes will come about...so why the axe? It's a desperate way to win votes... but still happy he's out

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 82

tj_321

Even to this day this video puts a smile on my face:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAqyf7a4xFM

Reply 83

clareyyyyyyy

Original post by Jacob-C

"Well yes, he's just got a face you want to slap hasn't he?"

http://games.usvsth3m.com/slap-michael-gove/

Reply 84

Jammy Duel

The thing is, imo, he was legitimately good, but as the analysts are saying, the whole cabinet reshuffle is quite heavily for image with the election less than a year away. It's removing the middle age white male image by bringing in younger players and more women while also demonstrating that it's a euro-skeptic government.

Reply 85

yo radical one

This is good, but I doubt his replacement will be much better.

The Conservative party (along with stereotypical social conservative types in general) seems obsessed with this idea of returning education in this country to the 1950's with endless wrote memorisation, as opposed to understanding of the material which seemed to be the more modern direction, and this I feel is more useful and relevant.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 86

stefl14

I actually liked Gove. Most of those who disagreed with him belonged to left wing special interest groups. This is just a political move to try and get votes. It's no surprise they've put a woman in the position (who will be told to keep everything the same anyway) to look modern. Regardless of what one says about Gove, at least he tried to make the education system more rigorous. At the moment it's a ****ing joke. I acheived 4A*s at A level and I'm sorry to say that it wasn't that hard - it just involved doing lots of past papers with their formulaic questions. This shouldn't be the case. People do A level maths and just learn methods that they forget because they don't learn anything from first principles or learn the derivations of anything important. Calculus is an excellent example. It's widely accepted that in maths learning derivations helps long term memory and this is the type of maths we need. All our education system is at the moment is rote learning. There is no thinking or problem solving really.

Reply 87

stefl14

Original post by yo radical one

Today's education in the UK promotes understanding? Don't make me laugh. I got 596/600 in A level Biology. I've just completed my second year of university and can't remember any A level biology (or barely any). I really do only remember the simplest of concepts. The reason is that rote learning methods work at A level. Having A levels at the end of two years is one way of preventing this type of thing.

Reply 88

Everglow

Gove is arguably the most despised Tory MP, therefore it's no surprise Cameron has made this change ahead of next year's GE.

I don't know much about his replacement, but if Gove is out then that can only be good news. His ideas were outdated, he ignored anyone who disagreed with him and took the entirely wrong approach to making our education system 'more rigorous'. His inability to communicate or compromise with teachers, exam boards and Ofqual will have likely led to this. He's a liability to the Tory campaign next year.

Reply 89

yo radical one

Original post by stefl14

I actually liked Gove. Most of those who disagreed with him belonged to left wing special interest groups. This is just a political move to try and get votes.

As opposed to right wing special interest groups which felt they had a right to tax payers money, which they would then use to set up schools promoting whichever bull**** agenda they want?

Original post by stefl14

It's no surprise they've put a woman in the position (who will be told to keep everything the same anyway) to look modern. Regardless of what one says about Gove, at least he tried to make the education system more rigorous. At the moment it's a ****ing joke. I acheived 4A*s at A level and I'm sorry to say that it wasn't that hard - it just involved doing lots of past papers with their formulaic questions. This shouldn't be the case. People do A level maths and just learn methods that they forget because they don't learn anything from first principles or learn the derivations of anything important. Calculus is an excellent example. It's widely accepted that in maths learning derivations helps long term memory and this is the type of maths we need. All our education system is at the moment is rote learning. There is no thinking or problem solving really.

This point has already been raised. Gove was in favour of methods in mathematics which simply required the student to follow steps, rather than having any understanding of why he/she is doing what they're doing.

Original post by stefl14

It's a mixture of both, but in the past it was clearly much more about memorising tables of facts/logs/Latin phrases and repeating them come the exam, which stops being useful as soon as the person leaves the exam hall.

Reply 90

claretmad

Original post by Reluire

He's a liability to the Tory campaign next year.

Well, we can only hope so.

Reply 91

Fullofsurprises

Original post by Guren

So will any of the changes be reversed or changed? Will anything be different? Is this just an attempt to get votes back?

They won't change the basic policy, which is to deny funds to state schools and move them to the increasingly disastrous Free Schools, which are all about winning votes for the Tories by pandering to religious and sectarian groups.

That will continue, Gove or no Gove - and will probably intensify. Basically, the new Conservative attitude to state education is to kill it off, without replacing it with anything, so the great majority of people are going to be deprived of resources for their kids education in the future, to provide enhanced education for the children of Muslims, middle class parents in villages, scientologists, Mormons, certain corporate heads with creationist and anti-science views, etc.

Reply 92

MagicNMedicine

Not sure what to think of Gove.

I like the fact he is always courteous and well mannered in interviews and doesn't get riled. I like the fact he appears to be intelligent and actually have an ideology and sense of direction. He isn't one for sitting on the fence or playing a political game. I also liked his old fashioned ideas on standards particularly in secondary education.

Problem with Gove is he doesn't try to bring people along with his vision. He thinks he is right and anybody that disagrees is just someone he will have to drag along kicking and screaming. This works to a point but you don't get anything done if you fall out with the people that you need on board to carry out your vision: particularly key groups like teachers and civil servants. Now you can dig in and say teachers and civil servants are just a bunch of lefties who need to be challenged, but when you're trying to reform the education system those are the people that you need to bring on board, and Gove was in an impossible position.

No leader can really work effectively when he has made enemies of his team and this is the situation Gove had got in to.

I think its a risk putting him in a very media-focused role in terms of the next election because his manner might rub voters up the wrong way as well. Being clever and moralistic and sure of yourself is not always the best way: it pays to have the common touch and seem like you relate to people, Gove doesn't do that.

Reply 93

stefl14

Original post by yo radical one

As opposed to right wing special interest groups which felt they had a right to tax payers money, which they would then use to set up schools promoting whichever bull**** agenda they want?

This point has already been raised. Gove was in favour of methods in mathematics which simply required the student to follow steps, rather than having any understanding of why he/she is doing what they're doing.

It's a mixture of both, but in the past it was clearly much more about memorising tables of facts/logs/Latin phrases and repeating them come the exam, which stops being useful as soon as the person leaves the exam hall.

You just described current A levels. People delude themselves into thinking that current A levels are hard because there are one or two questions that haven't come up before in the exact form in which they appear. Basically every question in every paper has appeared before in some form or another at A level. At the very worst, there is a very slight variation with very simple applications of basic theory. Anyone who does every past paper and memorises mark schemes should get at least an A in the current system. Until now, we have had an absolute joke modular system where you can do nothing in lessons (and I mean this literally - you could not turn up at all and start learning from scratch), revise 10 hours a day for 4 weeks and get full marks without too much of a problem. That's how ridiculous A levels currently are. Whether Gove was the man to do so or not, something needed to be changed. The move away from modular systems at the very least must be commended.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 94

Carnationlilyrose

Original post by clareyyyyyyy

http://games.usvsth3m.com/slap-michael-gove/

I can't tell you how much pleasure this gave me...

Reply 95

Jacob-C

Original post by clareyyyyyyy

http://games.usvsth3m.com/slap-michael-gove/

Thank you. That was a very productive five minutes.

Reply 96

Unkempt_One

Michael Gove's reforms to curricula are essential, and I am disappointed to see him leave. It is fair for the NUT and NASUWT to argue over pay and pensions, but after their insistence on meddling over the most important aspects of the education reforms - not to mention using logically fallacious arguments - I'm happy that the majority of their demands were not met. Perhaps if the teaching unions were not so dogmatically leftist, they may have been able to extract concessions to lighten the load on teachers without attempting to block important and common-sense reforms. My hope for the new education secretary is that she will not reverse the tide of reforms, but use her position as a blank slate to take a more conciliatory approach that will be much more difficult for the NUT and NASUWT to criticise.

Reply 97

pink pineapple

Original post by imtelling

China, Singapore, Korea and Japan top the education league tables. These places have very traditional education systems. They use methods of education that have been proven to work. British education relies on untested politically correct fads designed not to produce excellence, but equality of results.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/leaguetables/10488555/OECD-education-report-subject-results-in-full.html

Gove was going about it the wrong way, I doubt traditional methods of education would work here and there would've been more damage than improvement. Everyone knows there needs to be improvements to the education system but Gove wasn't the right person.