We must not waste our most vital resource

By Telegraph View. Britain still has world-class schools and universities from which our children can benefit.
For all its travails, there is one area where the Coalition is unquestionably on the right path: education. This is fortunate, since it is also the area that will determine whether the Britain of the 21st century thrives or declines.
There is nothing new, of course, in the idea that education matters: think of Tony Blair’s famous incantation of the word in 1996, designed to persuade the middle classes that he shared their burning desire to better their children’s lot. Think, too, of the reaction to Michael Gove’s recent letter to the Radio Times. In it, the Education Secretary apologised to Daniel Montgomery for his “clever-dick questions” and “pathetic showing-off” as a pupil at Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen. It struck a chord, with several other public figures taking the chance to apologise to, or simply thank, those teachers who had made a difference in their lives. More...