Each year my old secondary school awards a gold medal to ‘the best scholar’ of the year. Now that’s an old-fashioned concept, isn’t it? Imagine, singling one pupil out as superior. What about the losers? Scarred for life, doomed to low self-esteem, branded for life as failures.
It’s obviously a grammar school. And here’s another oddity. A year or two ago, it was won by a girl. Now, it’s not odd because girls are intellectually inferior, but because this school is single-sex, apart from the sixth form, where a few females are allowed in.
Moreover, two years before, her brother had won the prize.
What’s not odd is that they are Asians. Because – and I realise I am generalising here – Asians tend to take Tony Blair’s mantra ‘Education, education, education’ seriously. While Tony thinks government intervention can solve everything with targets, league tables, ‘parental choice’ and adding yet another subject to the curriculum every time there’s a press headline, Asians know that it all begins at home.
I mentioned this to a friend, who came up with an anecdote of his own. He told me about a family of Ugandan Asians, friends of his, who had been expelled by Amin and arrived in Britain penniless. They opened the stereotypical corner shop and worked long hours. The children helped out. But they also studied. They never missed school because their parents wanted to take advantage of a cheap-flight holiday; they wouldn’t have dared play truant; they were given set hours to do homework and this was enforced and supervised.
They grew up polite, well-educated, successful and integrated.
The Prime Minister-designate grew up in a home like that. But no doubt he will continue the current system, a muddle of bright ideas, wishful thinking and cock-eyed optimism.
It’s obviously a grammar school. And here’s another oddity. A year or two ago, it was won by a girl. Now, it’s not odd because girls are intellectually inferior, but because this school is single-sex, apart from the sixth form, where a few females are allowed in.
Moreover, two years before, her brother had won the prize.
What’s not odd is that they are Asians. Because – and I realise I am generalising here – Asians tend to take Tony Blair’s mantra ‘Education, education, education’ seriously. While Tony thinks government intervention can solve everything with targets, league tables, ‘parental choice’ and adding yet another subject to the curriculum every time there’s a press headline, Asians know that it all begins at home.
I mentioned this to a friend, who came up with an anecdote of his own. He told me about a family of Ugandan Asians, friends of his, who had been expelled by Amin and arrived in Britain penniless. They opened the stereotypical corner shop and worked long hours. The children helped out. But they also studied. They never missed school because their parents wanted to take advantage of a cheap-flight holiday; they wouldn’t have dared play truant; they were given set hours to do homework and this was enforced and supervised.
They grew up polite, well-educated, successful and integrated.
The Prime Minister-designate grew up in a home like that. But no doubt he will continue the current system, a muddle of bright ideas, wishful thinking and cock-eyed optimism.
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