Ministry for Fair Play
More balls from Balls...
Education secretary Ed Balls has sworn to empower teachers who have issues disciplining unruly kids due to the intervention of something called 'parents'. Apparently, there is still the odd fruit-loop floating about who feels that just because they helped to gestate and raise a child it gives them some sort of choice regarding the way that the state education system treats them.
The situation has reached a degree of such severity that some of these 'parents' are even getting so cocky as to march into classrooms if their children are given detention and demand that the teachers release them. As the law states that educators have no choice but to listen to the parents there's not much that they can do. How, then, are we to discipline these naughty students? Balls has decided that maybe the time has arrived to teach parents a lesson once and for all...
According to a (very brief) report at Channel 4, Balls has asked the Government's school behaviour adviser Sir Alan Steer to investigate how heads can work with parents who challenge their authority. Though the exact details of the investigation have not yet been made public, the news of such suggests that the Government's drive to deal with problems caused by the UK's youth is to take a stricter approach in the future, which will involve greater government intervention and less power in the hands of parents.
The issue of discipline in schools is certainly a touchy one these days. Kids really do seem to be little bastards in most cases, but the teachers (many of whom are fresh out of school themselves) seem ill-equipped to effectively discipline them. Something probably needs to change, but taking power away from parents is never going to be a popular move. Cocky Balls has got a tough job on his hands, but he shouldn't forget that parents should have more authority over their kids than the government...
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