Michael Gove Says School Holidays Are Too Long

The standards in any bureaucratic system do not improve if left alone. At best they stay the same and more probably they deteriorate.

The problem with and for Gove is that essentially this is his agenda and not that of the government. He is a rushing everything because he knows that if he loses this job, education policy is likely to go off on another tack entirely.

I'm surprised that there's so much criticism of this. I mean, not really, Everyone Hates Michael Gove(tm), but if you believe that education is a really good thing because more of it makes people earn more and be more intelligent, why wouldn't you want this? It's investing in our future and will improve the entire population's life outcomes in the long term.

Unless you don't believe more education does any of that... which would be an awkward stance for the teachers' unions to take.

I can see your point, but longer hours <> more/better education. It's a quality/quantity thing, I think.

But one could argue that we elected Gove as an MP, not as education secretary?

Several international studies have shown that excessive government interference in education causes far more problems than it could ever solve. Gove needs to shut his mouth and leave well alone, then standards might improve if, God forbid, teachers were actually allowed to teach.

Why do you think that providing more education will make it so much worse that it outweighs the benefit of having more of it?

And why isn't this a reason for shortening the current school day and terms? The current times don't seem to be constantly reviewed in light of empirical evidence; mostly they are based on when the school system was founded in the 19th century in an agricultural economy, so why should they be optimal?

This proposal rather reminds me of what happened with Foot and Mouth Disease more than a decade ago. The Ministry of Agriculture, as is was, panicked and said "don't go to the countryside". It simply had no clue that most economic actively in the countryside wasn't linked to livestock farming and it did immense damage.

This suggestion by Gove looks as though it has been devised solely thinking about schools with no thought to the extent that the English and Welsh economies (Scotland has different school holidays) and society have spent the last 100 years orientating themselves around the present school year and school day.

It may be that a change would be an improvement, but he won't have done an economic impact assessment. It will be complete tunnel vision looked at solely from the perspective of schools.

If you want an idea of what I mean, just think how many public bus timetables outside of the big cities have buses that are "schooldays only".

One of the main purposes of this seems to be line up schools with daycare rather than leaving that gap between when most kids finish school and when most people finish work.

Personally I don't have a lot of faith in central planning to produce good economic outcomes no matter how many knotted mountains of red tape sophisticated econometric studies are produced in the process. Which is why I'm a bit surprised by this. A true Govian policy should be to put the schools under the control of parents and let them set their own opening hours.

This is a rather silly criticism to make of Gove most of whose programme is about reducing the central control of the state over schools.

Why do you think that providing more education will make it so much worse that it outweighs the benefit of having more of it?

And why isn't this a reason for shortening the current school day and terms?

The current times don't seem to be constantly reviewed in light of empirical evidence; mostly they are based on when the school system was founded in the 19th century in an agricultural economy, so why should they be optimal?

An economic impact assessment isn't a piece of central planning. It is device to spot breaches of the most pervasive of all laws, the law of unintended consequences.

New policies on a regular basis is not a reduction in central control. For instance, radical changes in the curriculum at short notice have given very little time for teachers to prepare for said changes. Giving OFSTED the power to more forcefully implement an already flawed target based system is also increasing central control.

A number of my relatives, including my dad, are teachers, and they say government interference has never been higher.

I wouldn't say SO MUCH WORSE - I think you're exaggerating my position to try for a win, tbh - but I can't see the point of cooping kids up for longer, either. It'll be more expensive, assuming we plan to pay teachers and assistants more for the extra time, and I'm not convinced that it'll do much good, particularly for those who aren't especially academic.

I'm not a huge believer in "empirical evidence" when it comes to measuring the achievements and potential of human beings, it's too fluffy a thing to measure properly. It ain't broke, don't break it.

we are having no problem producing highly skilled graduates - in fact we are producing more than we ever had.