Private Thoughts Made Public

The BBC website has a section called “have your say”, where they ask a topical question and invite your comments. Today’s question is on the subject of “free schools”, an initiative set up by the new coalition government to allow individuals to set up their own schools and take their children out of the national education system. Here are some of the first comments left on the site:

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09:52am on 18 Jun 2010

And I thought the last government came out with some balmy ideas about how to improve the education system!

10:01am on 18 Jun 2010

so the tories are going to lets parents choose their school, and organise the buildoing and running of them ,in any other words its privatisation the tories favourite thing .get tid of all goverment responsabilities so they can blame others when it goe`s wrong ,will the school uniforems and equipment carry adverts .and the teachers will do as they please demanding large wages .but will the teachers be up to the standard the parents want and when the parents children have all left shools who will run them then .

10:04am on 18 Jun 2010

Do you believe the world is only 6000 years old?

Do you believe that fossil’s are God’s prasctical joke designed to trick you into eternal damnation?

Do you believe that everyone who doesn’t share your exaxct same religous principles is going to burn in hell?

Are you egearly awaiting the rapture so you can look down and watch the sinners gets their just come-uppence?

Now you can found your own school and make sure that a generation of children grow up to share your beliefs!

Sign up now!

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I’ve left all these comments as they were typed in by the original authors, and to be honest, I’m flabbergasted. If this is the state that literacy is in today, then all I can say is that the educational system we’ve had in place for the last 30 years or so has left a lot to be desired. I’ve no idea how old these commenters are, or what their backgrounds are, but let’s assume they were educated at different times, in different types of school, when different political parties were in power. This shows that neither the Conservatives nor Labour have put in place an educational system that works.

If state education has left people with this level of literacy, and the alternative is to let people have a go at it themselves, then I say bring on the free schools. They can’t be any worse than this, surely?