I am become Gove, destroyer of Education

Just when everyone thought Michael Gove couldn’t make anymore stupid and thoughtless remarks a document was leaked last night that shows he is planning to scrap GCSE’s, introduced by the Thatcher government in 1986, and bring back the old O-Level system. The system would work by having O-Levels for those subjects Mr Gove has decided are the most important: Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, English, Geography and History. For ‘less academic’ students there will be Certificates of Secondary Education, or CSE’s. Thus the exam system of the old Grammar School and Secondary Modern system will be reinstated if Mr Gove has his way.

But that system doesn’t work. Thatcher’s Conservative Government understood that people were angry that at the age of 14 their Children were grouped into either an academic elite or those who were ‘less academic’ and thus condemned to sit exams that were seen as inferior. In the GCSE system all students sit the same exam. Yes students get different grades but they are all given the same opportunity to succeed and try to achieve the top grades. The O-Level system condemns children at 14 and makes the choice for them of where their life will go. Mr Gove does not have the right nor the power to choose the fate of a generation of children.

Under the planned system those subjects not offered at O-Level would still be offered at GCSE. This would essentially mean all subjects Michael Gove does not see as important would be downgraded to a lesser qualification. Michael Gove would be condemning all arts based subjects and all students whose ability lies outside of the main academic subjects. Students who had qualifications in Art, Music, Drama and Economics would be seen as a second class student compared to a student who had studied Geography and Biology. How is this fair? Western Civilization is built upon the blending of all areas of knowledge; Economics relies on Maths, Drama can comment on History, Political ideas can be spread through knowledge of English. If the government starts deciding which areas of academia are important and which aren’t then the government will have the power to cripple western civilization, destroying in a few years the product of thousands of years.

Thatcher introduced the GCSE system because people said the O-Level system was unfair and failing students, widening the social divide and the wealth gap. Maybe the GCSE system does need rethinking. Personally, as someone who completed their GCSE’s last year, I find the fact that there are so many Exam Boards confusing and have come to believe that the education of students is being turned into a business venture for Exam Boards. But that doesn’t mean GCSE’s should be scrapped. Maybe we do need to look into the GCSE system and have an inquiry into how they could be improved, but that doesn’t mean we should scrap them and go back to a system that was seen as outdated half a century ago. When your computer starts to work a little slower, you don’t say “Oh well time to go back to my abacus”. The real intentions of Mr Gove are to return education to the system he grew up in. But Michael Gove went to a private school; he lived in a world of money and power, whilst around the country children just as old as him were being condemned as ‘less academic’. Rethinking the system does not mean talking a jump back into the past.

This recent scandal has just reinforced why Michael Gove is perhaps the worst education secretary the UK has ever seen. Margaret Thatcher was hated in the 1970’s as she was “Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher”, the education secretary who stopped over sevens from receiving free milk. If Michael Gove gets his way he will be remembered as the education secretary who damned a generation of children and destroyed their futures.

Why So Cosy?

At the moment the Dalai Lama is travelling around the UK on a tour of the country, stopping to give speeches on how the youth today have the power to change their world. Naturally this has angered China, not for the first time this year. In May China got in a huff because David Cameron met with the Dalai Lama in London. China stopped meetings between Chinese Ministers and their UK counterparts and said they would not be restored until the UK "stops supporting anti-Chinese forces”.

For those not in the know here is a quick history lesson. The current Dalai Lama is the 14^th manifestation of the bodhisattva of compassion and the leading figure of Tibetan Buddhism. In 1950 after the end of the Chinese Civil War which saw Mao Zedong declare the “communist” People’s Republic of China, the Chinese army invaded Tibet. The Dalai Lama fled in 1959 and since then has been the face of the Tibetan independence movement.  

For the Chinese government the Dalai Lama is the enemy. He wants Tibet to be freed from its invaders; he has condemned the Chinese regime saying it is in no way Marxist and brought to the attention of the entire world the culture of torture and abuse run by the Chinese government not just in Tibet but in the rest of China. To many around the world the Dalai Lama is a hero, a champion of pacifism and unity in mankind and someone who stands up to oppression. But in recent decades foreign governments have grown wary of him. Talking to the Dalai Lama always annoys China and many governments, including the UK government, have grown rather cosy with  China since its implantation of a more market based economy. They weigh money as more important that what is morally right. Cash comes before human life in their barometer if what is right.

But this is wrong.  How can we happily stand by a regime which has murdered millions, forced women to have abortions, massacred students in the streets when they peacefully protest, destroyed people’s homes when they are still in them, censored the media and the internet and supported regimes around the world that ignore human rights. How can we ever befriend such a country? The western world was happy to condemn the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact friends but because they can make a few bucks in China, they are praised.

I am not advocating a second Cold War, but I am advocating a system of foreign relations where human rights and human life is seen as sacred and of paramount importance, not the will of the markets. For instance at the moment China is blocking any resolution from the UN Security Council that would condemn the Syrian regime as they see the opposition movement as the ones in the wrong; China wants to condemn the massacred not the murderers. And the western response to this, hold a few press conferences where you say “Oh yeah we don’t agree with China and hopefully they will change their mind”. If it was me, or any right minded human being, I would be battering down their door demanding why they are ignoring human rights, I would be holding press conferences where I would be saying that this is typical of a regime that relies on terror and fear to cling on to power.

In the past few decades the UK has grown to close to China. How can we champion democracy and human rights when one of our biggest trading partners is a regime that is estimated to have caused the death of up to 55 million of its citizens? The UK needs to annoy China; it needs to talk to the Dalai Lama. In the 21^st Century we need to stay away from the People’s Republic and talk around the world of how we must support those repressed by the regime and demand that if China wants to enter the world community its needs to reform and start acting like a 21^st century country, where human rights and not optional extras and democracy and active political discussion is encouraged not beaten out of people. We cannot stand by murderous dictators, we must condemn them.

Self-Evident Truths

The Jubilee weekend is over, the boats are back in dock, the carriage is back in storage and the royal family have gone back home. Over the weekend millions around the country and commonwealth watched the Queen as she was paraded round to celebrate 60 years on the throne and many proudly sang the national anthem.  People proudly sang ‘God Save the Queen’, beaming with pride. Maybe they missed the crucial lyric. Maybe they chose to ignore the plea that the monarch “Long may reign over us”. I try and excuse these people because I cannot imagine how millions of people can ask to be enslaved and praise their so called ruler. The Jubilee was not a time for celebration, but a time for mourning.

In 1776 Thomas Jefferson proudly wrote that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”. These immortal words are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, a document which removed from the citizens of the American colonies the shackles of the British monarchy. These words were written 236 years ago, so why over two centuries later does the United Kingdom still have a head of state based on a hereditary monarchy. Elizabeth Windsor is my equal, not my superior. I am no one’s slave; she is not my ruler.  Why am I meant to accept the authority of one 86 year old woman to rule over me, and to accept that after she dies her son will rule me and his son and that all my descendants will always be ruled by their descendants? My descendants could be great writers, academics, scientists and politicians. They could win Nobel prizes or Oscars; travel to space or discover the cure for cancer. Yet I am meant to praise the fact that no matter what greatness they achieve they will the slaves of the Windsor’s and have to rejoice in their forced servitude. I will not. I am an equal to all human beings and I should be treated as such, not patronised as a weaker mortal who should bask in the glory of a superior monarch. The monarchy enforces an ancient belief that has no place in modern society.

Mrs Windsor did not become head of state because she is a woman of great wisdom, knowledge or ability to govern. She became head of state because in 1714 Georg Ludwig, a German Duke and Elector in the Holy Roman Empire, travelled to Britain to claim the throne after the death of Queen Anne.  My great great grandfather was a fisherman in Scotland, does this make me a great fisherman? My grandfather was a navigator in the RAF during the Berlin Airlift, does the mean I could successfully navigate a plane to Berlin?  If you look at other heads of state they are there because they were great lawyers, politicians and academics, not because centuries ago an ancestor used Machiavellian politics to gain power. No one is made superior because of the acts of an ancestor, yet this is the basis of the monarchy. 

The monarchy is a archaic institution, a last remnant of the ancien regime and the concert of Europe. But those days are past. The people of Europe cried out for democracy and after great struggles achieved it, yet we are left with a hereditary head of state.  The right to rule based on your family suffocates democracy and roots the British political system in the Dark Ages.

The silver Jubilee of Elizabeth Windsor highlights the need for an elected head of state in the United Kingdom. We should not rejoice at having someone to “reign over us” but demand equality, fight for freedom and cry out for democracy. It is time for the people of this sceptred isle to have the unalienable right to chose an equal to be head of state; a representative of the people not a ruler. I long for the day the monarchy will fall and Britain will finally emerge into a full democracy.