English education is not fit for purpose
For several months we have been watching Ofsted unravel. It has not been an edifying sight as everyone holds on to their jobs and everyone blames everyone else. Of late the education side of Ofsted has been saying that it has nothing to do with the social services side (where all the recent horrors, such as documents being shredded after 3 months) are revealed, but it is obvious to anyone with a second to look, it is all the same body.
Now comes the recognition (7 months late – but that’s how they do it in government sponsored bodies these days) that QCA is a disaster awful.
The head of QCA has clearly got a whiff of what the independent report into the latest fiasco (the SATS scandal) and has decided to chuck it in.
Which is more than happens in Ofsted, but lets take a look at the scenario. Mr Boston has resigned as chief executive of QCA has had 7 months to contemplate the utter disaster of the SATS results, during which time he has continued to take a £328,000 salary.
So why did it take so long for him to go? Was he trying to see if he could wriggle out of this one, perhaps in the hope that the report into his cock-up would say it wasn’t really him that was to blame and £328,000 is the going rate for idiots?
No, he said: ‘I have reflected since the summer on the delivery failure and on the difficulties associated with key stage testing.’ Actually I could quite happily reflect throughout the summer on that sort of money.
The company that did the marking of the SATS went last August and had to hand back £19.5m. Will the boss of QCA have to hand back his salary? I seems unlikely.