Difficult, but answers are needed
A LETTER published on this page a couple of days ago took the newspaper to task over our coverage of the Education Department's handling of the high schools' GCSE exam results, saying that events needed to be reported in a neutral and balanced manner with no outside interest and with minimal harm to the people involved.
A LETTER published on this page a couple of days ago took the newspaper to task over our coverage of the Education Department's handling of the high schools' GCSE exam results, saying that events needed to be reported in a neutral and balanced manner with no outside interest and with minimal harm to the people involved.
The recent articles and, particularly, the editorial comments in this column indicated a newspaper shamefully intent on the reverse, it suggested.
The correspondence is a good example of the difficulties faced in dealing with significant topics, especially where there is a reluctance by officials to release or discuss all the relevant information, and where the factual news report is later subject to editorial comment.
And while the reporting strives to be impartial, it will of necessity follow an angle where, say, a department is withholding information for no good purpose.
Editorial comment in that case is unlikely to be favourable. In the example of Education, shortly before it was forced to release school exam performance, its director of education was writing to this newspaper saying that '…the conclusion from the graph that results have declined is simply wrong'. Really?
There are, to put it mildly, issues of credibility involved. Is it a witch-hunt to seek to get to the bottom of that? Similarly with the earlier-raised concerns about the management style of the department. Is it blame-seeking or sensible to ask what the current political board has done to address the issues raised in an employment and discrimination tribunal report and a subsequent Education Department review?
Anyone familiar with the English schools system will be aware that there are profound differences between the devolved set-up there, giving school heads responsibility for performance and budgets, and the centralised, bureaucratic arrangements here.
Why have successive politicians retained a model that no longer has credibility in the UK but is one that concentrates enormous power in the hands of a few officials here?
The thrust of the questions might be uncomfortable but they demand answers.
Moreover, there is one overriding driver in this: children go to school just the once, so it has to be the best possible.
