there are plenty of other course options other than A'Levels.

I went to one of the better state high schools in Leeds - my GCSE maths set had 38 kids in it. in A-Level Maths we didn't even have enough textbooks to go round. I know this is a bit of an extreme example but this just isn't something private schools have to deal with.

I have friends who went to a few different private schools, their average class size was about 10-15, in state schools the class sizes are about 30. Having two to three times as much direct contact time with the must have a massive impact on attainment.

How the did we go from discussing the morals of zero hours contracts, to the quality of education in private and state schools?

You might well be right.

Doesn't everything come back to what that naaughty Yank said - in Britain we don't produce anything (more strictly, enough things) that people want to buy? Those Germans produce things that people want to buy and are willing to pay a premium for because they are pretty well made.

The other night I caught the end of a TV program where someone took his family to live and work in Germany "as Germans" not working for a UK company. The bloke ended up working as an employee on the shop floor in a pencil factory for Faber-Castell. They were actually manufacturing pencils.

Pencils are not high value, high margin products but Faber-Castell make a go of it and can be profitable employing about 900 people in Germany doing so.

The workers were well paid, no zero hour contracts in sight and the business profitable.

Perhaps the way things are done in Germany allows companies like them to survive?

Here is a link to the company which is worth a quick read as it sets out their attitude to its employees across the world

If Faber-Castell were a UK company listed on the stock exchange I reckon ALL production would have been banished to China long ago.

If there was anything left in the UK it would be a few sales staff and the office cleaners (the cleaners on zero hours contracts).

So if we don't produce anything people want to buy it's because in part we have no idea how to keep the production here or no will at the policy level (most likely IMO) to create an environment where a company like Faber-Castell cold thrive.

Not really.
For example, Britain produces a million cars a year, three-quarters of which are exported (despite the recession, more cars were exported in 2012 than ever before, however you count them, whether as a percentage or empirical numbers) ... that suggests that a) Britain can still manufacture and b) people want to buy them.

The UK could, of course, produce and export a lot more ... but that's not the same as saying that we don't or that the quality isn't good.

In fact, many UK companies are now bringing their manufacturing back to the UK, to keep an eye on quality and to shorten their supply chains.

Also, UK manufacturing, in terms of value, has continued to increase pretty much year-on-year since the end of WWII.
Manufacturing nowadays occupies a smaller space in terms of the overall employment and GDP of the UK, but we must take into account the huge increase in service and financial industries which have grown much faster.

Also, don't forget, back in the old days if you worked in a works canteen, you were classed as working in manufacturing, whereas nowadays that would often be outsourced to a catering company, so you'd be classed as working in catering. Ditto for site security, back-office functions, IT, company pensions, etc etc. Hence the numbers working in "manufacturing" would have shrunk by maybe up to a quarter or a third of the "manufacturing" workforce simply by outsourcing the non-manufacturing non-core functions.
Add to that the increases in productivity via automation and you can see why, although manufacturing output has carried on growing, employment in manufacturing has shrunk as a percentage of the workforce.

So, we can do it and we do do it ... but we could do more balance the economy.

Faber Castell are a good example of a Mittelstand company, i.e. a family-owned SME which sees its two-way relationship with its workforce as being vital for productivity, employee loyalty and quality.

When Dyson moved their production to the far east, James Dyson cited his local council's refusal to grant planning permission for an extension to the factory as the reason. Now I may be doing Sir James a great disservice here but if that really was the reason, did he find it impossible to locate suitable premises a little closer than China?

You've possibly picked a bad example as pencil manufacturing for one of the worlds best known brands is Derwent, still manufactured in Cumbria - unfortunately their web site seems to have gone tits up at the moment so I can't check that their manufacturing facility is still based in Cumbria

Quote: JerryChicken "You've possibly picked a bad example as pencil manufacturing for one of the worlds best known brands is Derwent, still manufactured in Cumbria - unfortunately their web site seems to have gone tits up at the moment so I can't check that their manufacturing facility is still based in Cumbria Yup, still made there ... www.pencils.co.uk/

Quote: JerryChicken "You've possibly picked a bad example as pencil manufacturing for one of the worlds best known brands is Derwent, still manufactured in Cumbria - unfortunately their web site seems to have gone tits up at the moment so I can't check that their manufacturing facility is still based in Cumbria Yup, still made there ... www.pencils.co.uk/