Don't be silly.

He never answers questions: he lacks the facility to come up with anything other than a plagiarised soundbite, some poll or an 'oh yes, you're so right'.

As usual no answers just juvenile insults. At least you are consistent.

In our day teaching was seen as a noble profession a bit like nursing - under paid - a vocation. Can you honestly say that is still the case. If the standard of education is improving why are they dumbing down the exams?

Is that really true though ?

I like to think that my early 1970s O levels were "worth" so much more than my own kids GCSE's but when helping them with their homework a few years back either their coursework was as hard as I remember mine being, or I'd forgotten everything I was taught.

Just to preempt the reply that businesses are forever complaining about the standard of English and Maths in their young employees, there was nothing wrong with my O level English when I started an office job in 1974 but everything wrong with my application of English in those first months of that job, I'd never written a business letter before I got the job, had hardly even used the bloody telephone, but I was tutored by my employer and shown these things - something that most employers seem to expect to be already supplied as part of the school leaver package these days ?

I've no reason to believe the teaching profession is particularly either over or undervalued today compared to the past.
I've also no reason to believe that teachers are overpaid.
Though, from my limited knowledge, I'd suggest its harder being a teacher today than in the past and that the role and duties of a teacher are not fully known/misunderstood by a lot of people.

I did not say today's teachers are overpaid - I said teachers in our day were underpaid. Nor did I say the teaching profession was under/over valued by society. What I said was teachers saw the role as a profession and accept the T&C as an occupational hazard.

I would agree it is harder to be a teacher these days as the behavioural standards in society have dropped and the respect for your elders has subsided.

If you want to see how dumbed down the exams have become compare exam papers from the mid 1970's to now - especial in technically subjects such as Maths and Sciences.

I agree re. the last paragraph - but isn't that the point of education? It should be possible to combine knowledge with some life skills in the 11/12 years that kids are in the education system.

I have compared them - there is a range of books published which contain O level exam questions from the 1960s and 70s, I stood and read the Maths one in a Waterstones a couple of years ago (wasn't going to bloody buy one) and couldn't answer one single question, and yet there was a time when I did and I got a reasonable grade (second time of taking), the fact that I then found my own childrens GCSE Maths papers hard to follow without the course work to back up the questions just shows that you have to take exams in context and not just have a sweeping view that its all dumbed down now.

Should be easy enough to teach some skills in replying in a business like way to an email or drafting a formal letter but businesses should also play their part and not moan about deficient skills if they haven't bothered with any input - how many 15 year olds get a valuable experience from their two week work experience schemes, not many I'd guess.

You were given answers.

If you claim you were not, then that's errant nonsense and patently stupid.

Indeed, I'd provided exactly the same answer to the 'question' on the RMT and pensions at least twice. That you don't like, agree with or understand it doesn't make it less an answer.

Especially those businesses who see virtue in avoiding paying UK tax and thereby making absolutely no contribution to the education budget

Well as we head toward the end of 2013 that gets my vote for most naive comment of the year.

Please explain why a company that is currently paying 0% tax in the UK by domiciling in some other country (or by adopting other legal avoidance measures) is suddenly going to domicile here and start paying 21% tax because the government reduced it from 23%?

They could reduce it to 10% and it will still make no difference as no company will start paying tax at 10% when they can avoid it completely.

Where in earth did you get this totally idiotic idea that they would?

You are now changing the subject.

You said "Indeed, I would argue that an austere environment is preferable when it comes to education. Comfort breeds complacency (which in a wider sense has become a national problem)."

I responded to that basically lazy "the good old days" type of argument giving you an example of how a modern and certainly not austere educational environment offers a clear improvement on "the good old days".

Are you going to admit the example I gave you is an improvement or are you going to argue the system I showed you should be scrapped because you think there is a poor standard of literacy and numeracy in school age children?

Didn't Ireland, which Osborne cited as a wonderful example of an economy to follow, go down the route of very low corporate tax?

What happened there, I wonder?