Verb. sap.

Not my lines below but those of Baroness Shirley Williams, Secretary of State for Education 1976-9 closing an article in the Education Guardian, 3.3.09 .

“In all sorts of ways, including promises of new buildings, pressure is being brought on community schools to opt out of local authority control. The declared emphasis of the government is on “driving up standards” but the evidence that these do that is at best mixed. Teachers have been compelled to conform to a ceaseless flow of directives, regulations and notes of guidance. Not only has their professional autonomy been undermined; their morale, attested to by the annual inspectors’ reports, is persistently low.

What may trouble the department more is the evidence that the UK is slipping in respected international league tables, that its educational standing is only a little above the average, and that the improvement in standards has slowed down. Perhaps the time has come to ask whether the pendulum, swinging towards intense regulation and control from the centre ever since 1988, has swung too far?”

Any words of mine would have had more acid, but level-headed judgment from a mild-mannered lady, the more pointed for its moderate tone, will be seen clearly to be on target. No doubt, though, that the apparatchiki in the Edukremlin will be calling for the flak-jackets – and as usual for the earplugs, while stocks last.

Juvenile.