This isn't a "nice to have" - it's essential. There is no point in inappropriate targets, but if there is no measure of success or failure for a position then either it wasn't worthwhile in the first place or the management of it does not know how to do its job properly. It is important for people to have a means to know when they are successful and it is the role of their employer to provide that.
Sure I have. I have also (under the same circumstances) ridden in an ambulance at more than twice the standard speed limit, the wrong way around roundabouts etc. because the nearest NHS hospital was not adequately equipped and staffed
State "provision" is a weasel phrase. it is important to differentiate between state involvement in funding (used as a means of redistribution of resource) and state involvement in delivery (which is a disaster).
You're missing the point. I am talking about appropriateness. A grammar school, or it's current equivalent is suitable for those with an academic ability. A technical school is appropriate for those with ability in that areas and so on. Nobody said that one is *better* or worse than the other. People need to get over that and set aside their political dogmatism that holds that it is.
No there isn't. What is important is that the education should match the strengths of the individual child as closely as possible. This is not achieved in a one-size-fits-all environment.
No it isn't. The focus is wrong. However, this does not mean that a perfectly good system of matching children to the most appropriate education for them is the wrong thing to do.
The replacement of it by a comprehensive system and the deliberately reduced standards that have gone with it have done a dis-service to two generations.
Like healthcare, it is time for politics to be taken out of it and the focus to be on delivering what is required by and most suitable for the individual.
There is no sense in forever trying to improve the unimprovable. Sooner or later, there has to be a day of reckoning. It makes far more sense for that to be an early date than a later one. Then at least the dross can be removed and replaced.
Agreed. However, there is nothing wrong with greed.
Nobody's arguing the toss. It's an issue of questionning the status quo and not accepting that it's good enough.
