Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Hot Swedish Model.

When it comes to education the Swedish model* could make a big improvement into the standard of education:
When Daniel Lundquist and his wife Ulrika moved to Ingaro, 30 minutes' drive east of Sweden's capital Stockholm, they immediately started looking for schools for their three young children.

Like many British parents they worried that the local state schools were either too far away or not quite what they wanted.

However, rather than complaining or simply going private, the Lundquists decided on a route currently not available to most British parents - they actually set up a brand new state school themselves with other local parents and helped run it just how they liked.

I'm glad that the Conservative Party are considering this, although it is depressing to see that Cameron is so scared of the Conservatives' being seen as right wing that they feel the need to insert a needlessly meddlesome spanner into the works of their own proposal:

There is one big difference between the Conservative proposal and the Swedish system - profit will not be permitted.

David Cameron does have to appeal to the centre ground so I understand the some of the positioning that he has done, but being outflanked on the right by Swedish socialists is ridiculous.

* As Tim Worstall points out on his blog fairly regularly, commentators like Polly Toynbee who salivate over the Swedish way of doing things generally don't actually know what Sweden does, just that they have high tax levels.

No comments: