Nationalization of Education: The Best Way Forward?

The grand majority of Western civilization lives under a capitalist government, meaning that the means of production are predominantly owned by private corporations operating for profit. The pinnacle of Capitalist society would, of course, be the United States of America, a society so inherently vehement against all forms of social community and corporate responsibility. This is probably the reason that it has carved it's place as the world's largest economy.
Closer to home however, privatization of public services gained a huge victory when in 1993 the British Conservative government, led by John Major, passed a legislation allowing the privatization of British Rail. Since then it's been an uphill climb that has continued with the Labour Government (AKA New Tory), allowing more private corporations to actively contract themselves for various elements of public services.
While we can't deny that in some cases, privatization has done varying degrees of good, there are various problems that we receive when we accept privatization into public services.

Education

The privatization of national education poses several major problems, the most predominate being:

• The fact that anyone can found a private school, regardless of their previous experience in the field of education. These schools can be founded for many reasons, one such worrying reason being personal profit and capitalization on the necessity to obtain an education in modern society.
• Privatized schools have the ability to abstain from any kind of national watchdog such as Ofsted, meaning that if a private school so choses, they can avoid any type of national scrutiny concerning the management of their budget, the competence of their staff and the general standards of the school. On the upside, most private schools are indeed very good schools where the level of education is considerably higher than their nationalized counterparts.
  

As a slight bracket, I'll relate my previous point to a personal experience of mine when I was living in Rome. I attended St. George's British International School in Rome for five years. My father taught there, as well.
The principal of said school (though not the founder), a Mrs Bridget Gardener OBE was somewhat of an eccentric personality, though the school went to the dogs during her tenure. First of all, the induction rates were amazingly high. In fact the fees are the following:

1. A one-time registration fee of €1,200
2. An additional induction fee that ranges from €9,150 (nursery school) to €17,250 per year per child
3. A lunch fee of €1,030
4. A re-registration fee of €450
5. A book-deposit fee of €400

Teachers at this school were payed around €1500 a month. So where did the rest of this money go? The school was (and still is) heavily in debt, over the course of five years they sold the swimming pool, the nursery complex (taking up more space in the Junior School campus), half of the exercise field and a good part of the school grounds, all to pay debts.
Secondly, Gardener would employ teachers even though they didn't have the sufficient qualifications required. My German teacher was hired simply because Gardener had a 'thing' for him. Luckily for me, he was a great teacher.

• Privatized schools do not have to follow a national education syllabus. This means that they could be teaching children that Jesus Christ made dinosaurs, and it wouldn't matter. Example: Reg Vardy, former used car salesman, now a founder of several christian schools

So what exactly would be the benefits of a widespread nationalization of all schools?

• Nationalization cuts out the need of ridiculously high school fees: the schools are provided for and financed by the government, meaning that taxpayer's money is being put to good use securing an education for future generations. Parents would instead be paying the things that are really necessary, such as school lunches and a book deposit. This also means that schools won't be in financial trouble, as they can rely on the government to provide for them.
  
• Nationalization also forces every school in the country to undergo regular inspection by an independent government watchdog such as Ofsted in order to determine whether or not a school is performing up to national standards.
• Nationalization obliges schools to follow a national syllabus laid out by the Minister of Education. Having said that, a syllabus is only as good as the Minister of Education who plans it.
• And perhaps the most important reason of all: schools in a national network are not founded for profit. They are there to help your child gain the best possible future and to help them develop a cultural and social education.

While both sides have strong points and weak points (and please be aware, this is a biased article), I do believe that nationalization is the most sensible way forward, and one hell of a kick in the gonads to the capitalist society we now live in.

Save Our Schools! French Edition

As you may or may not know, there have been various controversies in Britain lately over new government schemes (they asked me to stop calling it a 'plot') to up class capacities, making as little as one teacher and three assistants to have to deal with seventy children in one class. How do they plan to do this? Well, by putting giant TV screens in the classrooms. TV Nation indeed.
Anyways, this is a preposterous plan. We all know from our days at school that it only takes one pupil to start being an arse in class and the rest of the class stops paying attention to the teacher. Now, imagine a class of 70 sugar fueled children all chattering. Yes, Dante didn't know the half of it.
Anyways, it's been a turbulent few years for the French Education system. For two years running we've had student strikes against the CPE, causing havoc and turmoil to people everywhere. Now the teachers have decided that they're pissed off too and are causing major headaches for institutions all around France.
While the French labour system may be one of the best in the world (I.E. short hours, high pay), it holds many flaws; cracks which have become more than apparent since September of the previous year. At my school in particular, teachers have been giving us flyers detailing the various problems they're having. At first glance, they're pretty shocking:

-Classes will always be overflowing, new plans are being put forward to introduce at least 34 students per class.

-Five teachers are retiring at the end of this year, the worst part being that their positions will not be replaced meaning that teachers will have to work more, regardless of their existing schedule.

-Suppression of hours from the weekly timetable, 25% of existing school hours are to be scrapped next year. To give you an idea of exactly how much that is, over the course of seven academic years, students will have lost over a year compared to today.

-In the college (french equivalent of Junior High) plans are being made to scrap Sports and Art, meaning that children won't get any exercise or cultural education.

-The Careers Advisor will be sacked, this is actually all across France, meaning 4500 posts will be scrapped.

-Substitute teachers will not be provided, many cleaning and caretaking positions are also being scrapped. This has already taken effect, as I myself have noticed that classrooms aren't being cleaned as regularly as they once were.

-The library/IT room staff are being sacked, well most of them are. The library is, for some, the only way to get some aspects of work done, where internet access is required. It also serves as a safe haven for those actually wanting to get work done in a calm and peaceful atmosphere outside of school hours.

The reason for these cuts? A gaping budget deficit in the French Education system, meaning that less money is being supplied to schools for our future. This doesn't just affect teachers, it affects us too.
So why aren't we taking to the streets and actually DOING something? Simple scaremongering tactics are being employed by the administration. Over the past year, the Minister of Education has now made it a sanctionable offense for pupils to:

-Have political discussions in school. That's right, we're not allowed to complain about the government inside school grounds, or we could get detention, even be suspended.

-Protest and/or go on strike, as it falls into the above

-Wear religious items, such as crucifixes or headscarves in public schools, as it breaches the law of secular education.

In effect, the majority of our basic civil rights, most importantly freedom of speech and freedom of expression are being suppressed.

French education is fucked.