It is in the interest of the civil Service to preserve this status quo. This enables the DES and the Government as a whole to have a happy relationship with the NUT. And it doesnt affect us personally because we educate our children independently [privately Ed].
B.W. stubbornly insisted that the government wants change. Sometimes he is really dense. The teaching unions do not want change -- and whereas we only have to cope with any government for four or five years, the teaching unions are there for ever.
Furthermore, Woolley seems to be under the impression that it is our job to get the unions to accept government policy. It is in this very fundamental sense that he has been got at and brainwashed by the enemy. Mrs Wainwright may believe that this course is in the governments interest; she may even have persuaded the Prime Minister; but she is wrong!
Our objectives in the Civil Service are harmony and consistency, conciliation and continuity. Laudable aims, as anybody will agree. And since governments change policy all the time, and the unions never change their policy at all, common sense requires in practice that it is the government that should be brought into line with the unions. And that is what the DES is there for -- to get the government to accept the policies of the teachers unions.
Bernard Woolley remained doubtful, I am sorry to say. He merely reiterated that his master, the Prime Minister, is deeply worried that he is responsible for something he cant change.
Im sure he is. I call it Responsibility Without Power -- the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.
[Hackers diary continues Ed.]
December 13th
At my usual early morning meeting with Humphrey, right after breakfast, he raised the education question.
I understand, Prime Minister, that youre worried about the Local Education Authorities?
No, I told him, Im worried about the Department of Education and Science.
He was visibly surprised. In my opinion, the DES does an excellent job.
He cant possibly believe that! Nobody could believe that. I dont believe you believe that, I said.
You dont?
Sorry, no. Now he was insulted, I realised. I suppose Id inadvertently called him a liar. Still, I was committed. Dont you believe that I dont believe you believe that?
He was adamant and empathic. I believe that you dont believe that I believe that, but I must ask you to believe that although you dont believe that I believe it, I believe it.
I felt I had to accept that, especially as it took me quite a while to work out what hed said. Be that as it may, I continued, look whats happening to education in this country.
Dorothy had armed me with actual questions from school exam papers. Which do you prefer -- atom bombs or charity? And a maths question -- even maths is becoming politicaclass="underline" If it costs 5 billion a year to maintain Britains nuclear defences and 75 a year to feed a starving African child, how many African children could be saved from starvation by abandoning nuclear defence?
Humphrey answered the second question immediately. Thats easy. None. The MOD would spend it all on conventional weapons. But the question is simply asking for 5 billion divided by 75.
Do you deny, I remonstrated with him, that kids arent even being taught basic arithmetic?
No, he replied carefully. But the LEAs [Local Education Authorities] would doubtless argue that they dont need it -- the kids all have pocket calculators.
But they need to know how its done, I reminded him forceably. We all learned basic arithmetic, didnt we?
Humphrey then asked me a whole bunch of stupid and irrelevant question designed to prove to me that a strict academic education has no value! Humphrey, of all people! I couldnt believe it. He had the most traditional strict academic upbringing of anyone Ive ever met. Anyway, I brushed his smokescreen -- for that was what it was -- aside.
SIR BERNARD WOOLLEY RECALLS [in conversation with the Editors]:
I read this portion of Hackers diary with the greatest amusement. The questions to which he refers were neither stupid nor irrelevant.
When the Prime Minister asserted that we had all learned basic arithmetic Sir Humphrey immediately asked him: What is three thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven divided by seventy-three?
Hacker prevaricated, then said that he would need a pencil and paper for that. I offered him both but to no ones surprise he refused them, remarking simply that he could certainly have done that sum when he left school.
And now youd use a calculator? enquired Humphrey. The point was well taken. But Hacker denied that Sir Humphrey had made any useful point at all. Instead, he remarked peevishly that hardly anyone knew any Latin any more either.
Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis, replied Sir Humphrey appropriately.
There was a slight pause as Hacker stared vacantly at him. Finally he was obliged to humiliate himself again by asking him for a translation.
The times change and we change with the times, I said.
Precisely, said the Prime Minister, as if the quotation proved his point -- whereas any fool could see it helped Sir Humphreys side of the argument.
Humphrey provocatively continued to speak in Latin. Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, he said.
Hacker was suspicious. He asked what that meant. Sir Humphrey obliged. If youd kept your mouth shut we might have thought you were clever.
Hacker looked apoplectic. I thought he was going to suffer a coronary then and there. Sir Humphrey hastily explained. Not you, Prime Minister. Thats the translation.
Hacker then berated Sir Humphrey for denying the value of an academic education, whereupon Sir Humphrey replied -- rather too insultingly in my view -- that he could see no use for it if he personally couldnt even use it in conversation with the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
There is no doubt in my mind that Sir Humphrey, with his arrogance and determination to win the argument for its own sake, lost sight of his own policy objectives. By provoking and humiliating Hacker he ensured that Hacker would not drop the matter -- a serious miscalculation.
[Hackers diary continues Ed.]
Humphrey was basically refusing to admit that our educational system was a disaster. I told him: Children are being taught subversive nonsense. There is total indiscipline in the classroom.
Humphrey simply wouldnt acknowledge the truth. He kept making cheap debating points. For instance: If theres total indiscipline in the classrooms, they wont even know theyre being taught subversive nonsense. And they certainly wont learn any. Anyway, no self-respecting child believes a word the teacher tells him.
I was getting seriously angry at these facetious and unworthy answers. Were supposed to be educating them for a working life and three-quarters of the time theyre bored stiff.
I should have thought being bored stiff for three-quarters of the time was excellent preparation for working life, was the flip reply.
Humphrey, I said firmly, we raised the leaving age to sixteen to enable them to learn more. And theyre learning less.
Suddenly he answered me seriously. We didnt raise the leaving age to enable them to learn more. We raised it to keep teenagers off the job market and hold down the unemployment figures.
He was right. But I didnt want to get into all that. I returned to the rest of the question. I asked him if he was trying to tell me that theres nothing wrong with our educational system.
Of course Im not, Prime Minister. Its a joke. Its always been a joke. As long as you leave it in the hands of local councillors it will stay a joke. Half of them are your enemies anyway. And the other half are the sort of friends that make you prefer your enemies.