It matters to me very much that you people should be able to look someone in the eye and smile and say morning or good afternoon. A Very English Education, BBC 2013
Radley College is five miles from Oxford. Houses six hundred boys. And charges nearly three thousand pounds a year for board and tuition. ibid.
Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t. Pete Seeger
The authority of a father to guide and govern the education of his child is a very sacred thing, bestowed by the Almighty, and to be sustained to the uttermost by human law. It is not to be abrogated or abridged, without the most coercive reason. For the parent and the child alike, its maintenance is essential, that their reciprocal relations may be fruitful of happiness and virtue; and no disturbing intervention should be allowed between them whilst those relations are pure and wholesome and conducive to their mutual benefit. Lord O’Hagan, re Meades (1870) 5 Ir L R Eq 103
They did not have the right to be awarded a degree. Amanda Vickery, Suffragettes: Forever! The Story of Women and Power II, BBC 2015
As students face a hike in tuition fees we investigate the real education gravy train. Dispatches: Cashing in on Degrees, Channel 4 2011
Next year’s intake face [tuition] fees of up to £9,000 every year. But life isn’t tough for everyone. For some university bosses the gravy train just keeps on rolling. All in the dash for cash. ibid.
Vice-Chancellor: £250,000. ibid.
British universities are now going global. ibid.
How do Professor Cantor’s [York] students feel about his expenses? ... The house he lives in is rent-free. ibid.
While students pay through the nose for their housing, across the country some university bosses stay in accommodation that you pay for ... Around half have grace-and-favour homes. ibid.
The body that oversees university pensions – the Universities’ Superannuation Scheme. ibid.
Britain is the second biggest player in the global student market behind the United States. Students from outside the EU currently make up 11% of all higher educational enrolments here; they make up 27% of all postgraduate students. And it’s estimated they contribute £5 billion to the UK economy. One of the top countries sending students to UK universities is India: last year it sent over 38,000 here – up 13% on the previous year. So the market is huge with the UK universities desperate to increase finances. ibid.
At the London School of Economics two-thirds of students are from overseas, many able to pay top rates. Eight years ago, one of those students was the son of Colonel Gaddafi. Saif Gaddafi was awarded a Phd in 2008. A year later the Gaddafi Foundation awarded £1.8 million to the University. ibid.
If we want to stop commercialisation destroying education we have to make a stand. ibid.
If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training good members of society ... It is the education which gives a man a clear, conscious view of their own opinions and judgements, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought to detect what is sophistical and to discard what is irrelevant. John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University
The highest result of education is tolerance. Helen Keller
I suppose if I’d have been educated instead of going to Eton things would have been different. When London Sleeps 1932 starring Leslie S Hiscott & Harold French & Francis L Sullivan & Rene Ray & Alexander Field & Ben Field & Bromley Davenport & Herbert Lomas & David Butler et al, director Leslie S Hiscott, him to her
One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me that Superman did not exist … He always shows up and saves the good people. Waiting for Superman, 2010
Each morning wanting to believe in our schools … These teachers embodied a hope and carried with them a promise that the idea of public school could work. ibid.
Reading scores have flatlined; and Math is no better. ibid.
‘No child left behind’. ibid. Bush’s initiative
57% of Daisy’s classmates won’t graduate. ibid.
Almost every category we’ve fallen behind. ibid.
Our schools haven’t changed but the world around them has. ibid.
An achievement gap between rich and poor children. ibid.
Bjorn is a great kid. But he is struggling with his psychomotor milestones. Lilyhammer s2e5: The Black Island, special needs nursery teacher to Frank & Sigrid, Netflix 2013
Education ain’t all books, son. It ain’t all books and lectures and Russian professors. Fox V: Shim-Me-Sha-Wobble, Billy, Thames TV 1980
We’re sold a story about how to do well in life. If you get a good degree from one of the best universities, you can make it to the top. Turns out that’s a bit of a lie. New research is revealing the subtle ways young people from poorer background are excluded from Britain’s top professions. You need something else to break into the elite, something they don’t teach you about in school. So what are the rules of the game? How to Break into the Elite, Amol Rajan reporting, BBC 2019
Just how easy is it for today’s kids to make the journey I did? [Oxbridge] ibid.
10% of working class people will make it into elite occupations. ibid.
‘When we look at those who went to Russell Group universities, those from a privileged background who get 2:2 degrees, second class degrees, are still more likely to go into a top occupation than those from working class backgrounds who got to the same universities and got a first.’ ibid. researcher
The dashed hopes of an entire generation. ibid.
‘If you have a parent who works in film or television, you are twelve times more likely to go into film or television.’ ibid. researcher
‘I don’t think the elite will ever give way.’ ibid. Matthew Wright
In a lot of elite professions, prejudice about class goes completely unchallenged. ibid.
51,000 men and 400 women are incarcerated in New York State. 950 have access to higher education. 300 are trying to earn college degrees in one of the most rigorous prison education programs in America: the Bard Prison Initiative, or BPI. Storyville: College Behind Bars I II, BBC 2020
The truly educated become conscious. They become self-aware. They do not lie to themselves … Thought is a dialogue with one’s inner self. Those who think ask questions, questions those in authority do not want asked. They remember who we are, where we come from and where we should go. They remain eternally skeptical and distrustful of power. And they know that this moral independence is the only protection from the radical evil that results from collective unconsciousness. The capacity to think is the only bulwark against any centralized authority that seeks to impose mindless obedience. There is a huge difference, as Socrates understood, between teaching people what to think and teaching them how to think. Chris Hedges, Why the United States is Destroying Its Education System, 2011
For any parent making sure their child gets a good education can be a real worry. When a child has special educational needs and disabilities the anxiety can be draining. In the six months since schools closed for the majority of pupils, children with some of the most complex needs have been struggling. And although many are now back in the classroom, for the families the anxiety goes on. Panorama: Fighting for an Education, BBC 2020
In 1960s and ’70s Britain hundreds of black children were caught up in an extraordinary scandal. They were labelled as educationally subnormal by the state and wrongly sent to schools for children with low intelligence. A decision that would have a devastating impact on their lives. Subnormal: A British Scandal, BBC 2021
This is a story that exposed assumptions at the heart of the British’ schools system that has an enduring legacy today. ibid.
But how did these ideas about race and intelligence find their way into the British schools system? ibid.
The leaked report from the ILEA contained a multitude of damning admissions: it revealed that the education authority was well aware that Caribbean children were being wrongly placed in ESN schools at much higher rates than their white peers. ibid.
The establishment in Britain is certainly against the arts and against education. If something doesn’t make a profit, it’s invalid, and art doesn’t make a profit in that sense. Peter Maxwell Davies
This is a lesson in a progressive comprehensive school. A hundred fourteen-year-olds are taking part in a mock-up of an international trade war. In the last six months progressive and comprehensive education have come under constant attack. World in Action: A School of Thoughts, ITV 1976
The House of Lords has severely weakened the government’s bill to make comprehensive education compulsory. ibid.
Where you go to school says a lot about you. And in the UK where the attainment gap between the richest and poorest children has barely changed in ten years, your school also impacts your exam results, your prospects, and your life opportunities. Darren McGarvey: The State We’re In s1e2: Education, BBC 2024