Author: Walter Humes
The politics of ‘independent’ reviews
‘As for the other people on the forum, it would be surprising if any ‘wild cards’ are to be found, since the tried and tested mechanisms of patronage ensure that those who get through the vetting process have to be judged ‘sound’. In the conformist culture of Scottish education, any tendency to ‘rock the boat’…
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Re-branding the Curriculum for Excellence
PISA results attract particular (and perhaps disproportionate) attention because they are now the only substantial source of comparative data available to Scottish policy makers. Walter Humes update explains why ‘refreshing’ CfE is unlikely to deliver change.
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The parochialism of the present
‘Revisiting our educational history might encourage us to question some of the prevailing orthodoxies of our time…Perhaps we should ask why there are no comparable radical voices in Scottish education today.’
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The Scottish Bureaucratic Mind
‘Modern Scotland, both before and after devolution, emerges as a country that is more committed to bureaucracy than democracy’.
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The charmed inner circle of Official Scotland
‘Official Scotland is a relatively small world and many of the key players meet and socialise on a regular basis. Cronyism with a Scottish accent is no more acceptable than the public school/Oxbridge variety…it exhibits many of the worst features of narrative privilege, bureaucratic defensiveness, professional protectionism and the abuse of patronage.’
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