Michael Gove's glorious return to "Great" Britain

Michael Gove publicly dismissing experts' opinions and undermining the school system is a subliminal but clear sign of his support of his obsolete 'Oliver Twist' ideology. 

The text below has been adapted from "Ten reasons why Michael Gove is bad for our children’s education", NUT, 2014, from when Gove was Education Secretary.

1 Gove has a narrow view of what makes a good education.

2 Gove constantly run down our education system and our children’s achievements, despite our country doing well in international league tables – this demoralise[d] our teachers and our children

3 Gove has removed the need for schools to employ qualified teachers, and attack[ed] our teachers’ professionalism.

4 Gove has presided over the unfairness of last year’s GCSEs and refused to do anything to help the 10,000 children given unfair grades.

5 Gove has done nothing to resist the trebling of tuition fees.

6 Abolition of the EMA has resulted in fewer 16-19 year olds in education.

7 Gove has unpicked many long-standing requirements for school premises, including dropping requirements for minimum temperatures, staffrooms, and minimum ratios for toilets; and he’s reduced the space standards for new schools as well.

8 Gove has cancelled the modernisation programme for all schools and diverted the money to supporting Free Schools, often in areas which don’t need extra school places.

9 Gove has cancelled the City Challenge programme which was improving results without privatisation.

10 Gove want[ed] to end the national teachers’ pay system, putting recruitment and retention of teachers at risk and forcing head teachers and governors to focus on negotiating pay instead of improving standards for students