Editorials

#YEAR10PROBLEMS

3 February 2015

By Lauren E. White

Public sector

As some of you may have seen, last week I pulled out the emergency card and wrote an emergency #YEAR10PROBLEMS as my ‘school’ had decided to drop A-level RE. You may ask why school was in inverted commas, but all will become clear as you read on.

After dropping A-level RE, it emerged that they were making 31 members of staff redundant, making top set classes have an average number of 35 and bottom set support classes of up to 25 students. Then, our Principle went on to give a local newspaper a quote saying that it was an ‘exciting’ time for the school. Am I missing the point?

It seems I’m not, though, as he won’t be affected by any of the changes – he sits at the top and watches us all crumble underneath him. Now, back to the inverted commas: we are not a school anymore. We are  a business. I have suddenly become aware that we are no longer a place of education, we are on a money-making carousel just like the hundreds of other Academies out there.

The public sector is being treated like a business with our government mirroring a bunch of capitalists who have no regard for anything social. The NHS, fire and police services are, along with education, existing to simply provide money rather than a good quality of life. This is not how things should be at all.

Education should have one purpose only: to educate. The NHS, fire and police services should have one purpose only: to care, support and protect. How can we ever justify them having any other purpose? It’s simple: we can’t.

Whether or not you think this is your problem or not, you must understand that it is. It is my problem, your problem and your dad’s sister’s friend’s problem. It is a problem that needs to be solved.

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