So you expect to be promoted if you fail to learn to read and write? How bizarre and frankly MORONIC!

I was quite puzzled with some of the statements on TV today. The Conservatives announced that if a student has not able to graduate from primary school with basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic (functionally literate, I would guess), they should be asked to resit the examination. In other words, you stay back till you learn to basically read and write.

But these are some of the reactions I read / heard

1. But Jean Milham, head teacher of Morningside Primary School in Hackney, east London, told BBC Radio Five Live that the idea would mean children were branded as failures.
2. The held back children will not like studying with children 2 years younger than them.
3. The children who have been held back will become more disruptive.

Now this is totally bizarre to me. These teachers and parents are basically saying that forget about the basic fact that the children havent learnt basic literacy, but promote them just so save the little darling's self esteem, not let them be disruptive?

So lets see, 4 years after promotion, they are way behind in class, they have already disrupted other students and held them back, asked for more and more attention from the teacher, and more often than not, will drop out as soon as possible.

I am not talking about students who are learning challenged because of medical reasons. I am talking about normal students. If they havent managed to learn basic reading writing and adding up by the time they are 9 (ranges between 8-10) years of age, then how on earth are they going to cope with more advanced and more complicated studies in the middle school?

And this is so much of common sense that I simply cannot understand how a parent and teacher can even say such a thing? The Labour political leaders are basically posturing so I am going to discount them, but this is truly shocking. And what was even more shocking was that the BBC people did not even challenge this. Are they muppets or what?

Shocking, I tell you, shocking. This is a race to the bottom instead of the top. I was raised with the idea that a child is not a vase to be filled but a fire to be lit. These teachers and parents think that the child is a vase to be filled with utter and pointless rot. And then they wonder why their little darlings are unproductive and form the underclass of society.

Read and WEEP!.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!