Daily Archives: March 8, 2017

AS a semi-product of the grammar school system, I welcome wholeheartedly prime minister Theresa Mays plans for a grammar school revolution.

Mrs May will announce this week that the ban on new grammars is to be reversed and 320m is to be set aside in todays budget for new free schools, many of which are expected to be grammars.

I describe myself as a semi-product of the old grammar school system because I was one of the unfortunate children of the 1970s caught in the fire of the abolition of the grammar school system. In 1979, at the age of 14, my convent grammar in Barrow ceased to exist; the teaching nuns were put out to grass; and the pupils were scattered around various schools in the area - something that would cause outrage today, no doubt.

One of the most strident and oft-parroted criticisms of the grammar school system is that putting children through the trauma of the 11-plus exam is cruel and unfair; that deciding on the path they must take at such a formative age is iniquitous.

Both of which are untrue.

The 11-plus exam was, for me, no more stressful (in fact, considerably less so) than doing my cycling proficiency test. My mum took the wise decision not to tell me I was taking this exam and I simply turned up at St Marys Catholic school in Ulverston one day for the headmaster Mr Maguire to tell me I was doing a little test that day with another pupil. We duly did the test and went back to join the rest of our classmates. No big deal because in those days children were brought up via need-to-know parenting methods, rather than todays insistence on over-sharing of information and including kids barely out of nappies in major family decisions.

The other main criticism levelled at grammar schools is that selective education is inherently unfair and divisive, a criticism that is, at best, naive.

When I arrived at Ulverston Victoria High School in September 1979, I discovered there were no fewer than 12 sets for maths and English. Sets one to four were for the academic high flyers heading for university; sets five to eight for the middle-of-the-road kids heading for the world of work sooner rather than later; and sets eight to 12 for those pupils who were either too naughty or too dim to trouble the education system very much at all. Educationally, the differing groups barely mixed and not much more socially, either.

Other than the fact that all these children wore the same uniform, they more often than not experienced very different school lives from each other.

Of course, if pupils did well, there was always the possibility of moving up a set or more just as under the old system pupils who failed their 11-plus could sit it again and move to their local grammar school at a later date.

Selection in educational terms has become a taboo, yet it is difficult to understand why. The sporting world is selective, so why not the academic world too?

Grammar schools gave clever children from poorer backgrounds real opportunities in life; and the abolition of them was a huge educational setback, leaving many potential high flyers to the mercies of the bog standard comps which have done such a great disservice to so many of our children.

Under Mrs Mays new proposals, the inherently unfair system whereby free transport for pupils is provided only for those attending non-selective schools will be overhauled; with free transport being provided for pupils from poorer families to travel up to 15 miles to a selective school. Thats a real step in the right direction.

A reversal of the ban on grammar schools is long overdue. It was an iniquitous measure which has been to the detriment of far too many children left to flounder in inadequate and failing comprehensive schools. The grammar a school and technical school system worked well; and their abolition was a mistake. It is a mistake from which Brexit Britain needs to learn and learn quickly.

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OPINION: Grammar knows best - North West Evening Mail - NW Evening Mail

The tragic death of soldier Roy Mathew, a Sahayak, whose video slamming the Sahayak system which exploits the soldiers has started a demand that this centuries-old Sahayak system should be abolished.

Reuters

Sahayaks or buddies, they often garrulously refer these soldiers as are the gun-wielding soldiers given to officers to assist them in performing their duties.

But first the British and later the Indians who served as senior and officers misappropriated the assistance, these soldiers are supposed to provide and many of them allegedly ended up being the domestic help of not only the officersbut also to their families.

It started in British Indian army where the highest post an Indian soldier could move up to was a Subedar. As all the officers were British and therefore they kept Indian soldiers to maintain their uniform, weapons, vehicles and other chores. With independence, British officers were replaced with Indians, but this tradition didnt die.

Reuters

Various revelations by these Sahayaks have unearthed that apart from the main duties that they are mandated to do, they do chores like boot polish, taking officers dog for a walk, taking officers wife and kids to market or wherever they wish to go. Some findings have also revealed that many of them have been tasked to do the laundry of not only the officer but his entire family.

According to written answer of Defence Ministry in response to the report of parliamentary standing committee on defence on the issue of Stress Management in Armed Forces, the ministry said that Sahayaks are authorised to Officers and Junior Commissioned Officers in the Army when serving with units or Headquarters functioning on War Establishment.

AFP

The scale of authorisation of Sahayak is the following:

One for every field officer and above

One for every two officers of the rank of captain and below

One for every Subedar major

One for every two Junior Commissioned Officers of the rank of Subedar and below.

The report was submitted as 31st report during the 14th Lok Sabha in 2008.

According to defence ministrys answer, following are the duties, a Sahayak is supposed to carry out while assisting the officer:

To provide personal protection and security.

To attend telephones, receive and deliver messages during operations, training and exercise and in peace.

To maintain weapons, uniforms and equipment of Officers/Junior Commissioned Officers in accordance with custom and usage in the Army.

To assist in digging trenches, erect bivouacs and shelters during war, training or exercise while the leaders are more busy in planning, coordination and execution of operations.

To be of assistance during patrols and independent missions.

To carry and operate radio sets, maps and other military equipment during operations, training cadres and outdoor exercises.

The Defence ministrys answer to the parliamentary standing committee says that apart from the Indian army, none of the other armed forces, neither the Navy nor the Indian Air Force have Sahayak system in place. But dont Navy and Air Force officers have peace postings. Of course, they do.

Based on the ordeals of many jawans working as Sahayaks, the committee took ministry to cleaners and questioned the usage of Sahayaks as domestic help by the officer and his family.

The Committee noted that the jawans are recruited for serving the nation and not to serve the family members of officers in household work which is demeaning and humiliating.

AFP

The chorus like polishing the boots, and doing laundry of officers entire family is humiliating for a soldier who came to army to serve the nation and not to serve the whims and fancies of officers and their families.

The committee also cited the several instances soldiers have been seen deployed at the residences of the officers. To this, the representative of the army had answered, Would have been attending the work at home due to reverence. He is not supposed to do it technically. He is not supposed to work in the house.

Based on these findings, the committee recommended the abolition of the sahayak system in the Army and also recommended that the Ministry of Home Affairs take similar steps in para military and other organisations. The committee in its fourth report of the 15th Lok Sabha submitted the action taken report on its previous recommendations.

In reply to committees recommendation of abolition of the Sahayak system, the ministry of Defence gave it a cold shoulder and merely stated that the system should not be misused to employ sahayaks in menial house-hold work. But it refused to accept the recommendation of the committee.

Post the slew of controversies, Army Chief, General Bipin Rawat has recommended the government to abolish this age old system of Sahayaks aka buddies at least in the peace areas.

In field areas, sahayaks are still required because of the buddy-pair concept in the infantry. We proposed to the government to have buddies only in forward areas, Gen Rawat was quoted in Deccan Herald on January 15, the Army Day.

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This Is Why Modern India Needs To Discontinue The Abused #Sahayak System In The Indian Army - Indiatimes.com

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The petition calls for the mandatory fee of 145.50 per household per year to be ditched, arguing that it is too expensive. By law, every household capable of viewing live content must pay the TV licence, used to subsidise the state broadcaster, whether they access BBC content or not. Failure to pay is a criminal offence.

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But even if the idea gains support among MPs during the debate, scheduled to take place on 8 May, fee payers are unlikely to be let off the hook for at least another decade as the state broadcasters charter, which sets the terms for the fee for a ten-yearly basis, has only just been renewed.

In an official response to the petition, a government spokesman said: Throughout the Charter Review, the Government considered the question of funding the BBCs services, and decided that the licence fee system will be maintained for the coming Charter period.

In maintaining the licence fee model, the government is clear that the licence fee remains a licence to watch or receive television programmes, and is not a fee for BBC services although licence fee revenue is used to fund the BBC and other public service objectives.

In further bad news for British households, the fee, which has been frozen since 2010, is set to rise with inflation for the next five years the spokesman said. They added: The government also intends to help those on lower incomes by making the licence fee easier to pay through proposals to provide more flexible payment plans.

Pensioners will continue to see the cost of their fee subsidised by the taxpayer.

Nonetheless, campaigners for the abolition of the fee have welcomed the debate as a way of gauging support within the Commons for an end to the fee.

Andrew Allison, head of campaigns for The Freedom Association which runs the Axe the TV Tax campaign, told Breitbart London: Although a debate in Parliament on the future of the licence fee is welcome as it keeps the issue alive, it wont make any practical difference. The Government has already agreed a new Royal Charter with the BBC.

What will be interesting, though, is to find out how many of the current crop of MPs are opposed to it. We hope to work with them to make sure at the end of this Charter period, the telly tax becomes a relic of the past.

Support for dropping the fee is growing among the public as people are increasingly opting for subscription viewing packages or are turning off their sets entirely.

A 2016 Ofcom study of British viewing habits found that the average amount of time spent watching tv daily dropped by 11 per cent between 2010 and 2015, driven mostly by young people turning off. While the viewing habits of those aged 65+ remained largely unchanged, children and those in the 16-24 age range showed a reduction of over a quarter in their average viewing time.

In 2015/16 the BBC gained3.74 billion from licence fee payments.

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MPs to Debate Scrapping the TV Licence Fee - Breitbart News