Sunday 24 June 2007

The beginning of the end for the industrial schooling system?

by Graham Attwell

Eleven existing secondary schools in Merseyside will be closed by 2009 and replaced by "learning centres" where they

will open from 7am until 10pm in both term-time and what used to be known as the school holidays. At weekends, they will open from 9am to 8pm.

Youngsters will not be taught in formal classes, nor will they stick to a rigid timetable; instead they will work online at their own speeds on programmes that are tailor-made to match their interests.


The students (should we still refer to them as "students" or "customer" or "client"?) will be given the day's assignments and then they can disperse into Internet Cafe zones to carry them out.

The focus of the new learning centres, according to what Graham quoted, are mainly vocational such as "haircare, beauty therapy, leisure and tourism, and engineering as well as the more traditional academic subjects"

This is certainly a bold move. I believe the success depends on the nitty-gritty of implementing the concept.

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