In our day teaching was seen as a noble profession a bit like nursing - under paid - a vocation. Can you honestly say that is still the case. If the standard of education is improving why are they dumbing down the exams?

Is that really true though ?

I like to think that my early 1970s O levels were "worth" so much more than my own kids GCSE's but when helping them with their homework a few years back either their coursework was as hard as I remember mine being, or I'd forgotten everything I was taught.

Just to preempt the reply that businesses are forever complaining about the standard of English and Maths in their young employees, there was nothing wrong with my O level English when I started an office job in 1974 but everything wrong with my application of English in those first months of that job, I'd never written a business letter before I got the job, had hardly even used the bloody telephone, but I was tutored by my employer and shown these things - something that most employers seem to expect to be already supplied as part of the school leaver package these days ?

I've no reason to believe the teaching profession is particularly either over or undervalued today compared to the past.
I've also no reason to believe that teachers are overpaid.
Though, from my limited knowledge, I'd suggest its harder being a teacher today than in the past and that the role and duties of a teacher are not fully known/misunderstood by a lot of people.

I did not say today's teachers are overpaid - I said teachers in our day were underpaid. Nor did I say the teaching profession was under/over valued by society. What I said was teachers saw the role as a profession and accept the T&C as an occupational hazard.

I would agree it is harder to be a teacher these days as the behavioural standards in society have dropped and the respect for your elders has subsided.

If you want to see how dumbed down the exams have become compare exam papers from the mid 1970's to now - especial in technically subjects such as Maths and Sciences.

I agree re. the last paragraph - but isn't that the point of education? It should be possible to combine knowledge with some life skills in the 11/12 years that kids are in the education system.

I have compared them - there is a range of books published which contain O level exam questions from the 1960s and 70s, I stood and read the Maths one in a Waterstones a couple of years ago (wasn't going to bloody buy one) and couldn't answer one single question, and yet there was a time when I did and I got a reasonable grade (second time of taking), the fact that I then found my own childrens GCSE Maths papers hard to follow without the course work to back up the questions just shows that you have to take exams in context and not just have a sweeping view that its all dumbed down now.

Should be easy enough to teach some skills in replying in a business like way to an email or drafting a formal letter but businesses should also play their part and not moan about deficient skills if they haven't bothered with any input - how many 15 year olds get a valuable experience from their two week work experience schemes, not many I'd guess.

You were given answers.

If you claim you were not, then that's errant nonsense and patently stupid.

Indeed, I'd provided exactly the same answer to the 'question' on the RMT and pensions at least twice. That you don't like, agree with or understand it doesn't make it less an answer.

Especially those businesses who see virtue in avoiding paying UK tax and thereby making absolutely no contribution to the education budget

Well as we head toward the end of 2013 that gets my vote for most naive comment of the year.

Please explain why a company that is currently paying 0% tax in the UK by domiciling in some other country (or by adopting other legal avoidance measures) is suddenly going to domicile here and start paying 21% tax because the government reduced it from 23%?

They could reduce it to 10% and it will still make no difference as no company will start paying tax at 10% when they can avoid it completely.

Where in earth did you get this totally idiotic idea that they would?

You are now changing the subject.

You said "Indeed, I would argue that an austere environment is preferable when it comes to education. Comfort breeds complacency (which in a wider sense has become a national problem)."

I responded to that basically lazy "the good old days" type of argument giving you an example of how a modern and certainly not austere educational environment offers a clear improvement on "the good old days".

Are you going to admit the example I gave you is an improvement or are you going to argue the system I showed you should be scrapped because you think there is a poor standard of literacy and numeracy in school age children?

Didn't Ireland, which Osborne cited as a wonderful example of an economy to follow, go down the route of very low corporate tax?

What happened there, I wonder?

Lower corporation tax is a keystone of coalition fiscal policy, with large company rates being reduced to 20%.

You made a bit of a song and dance earlier in the thread about us all being worse off than 30 years ago. That would have been 4 years into Mrs Thatcher's premiership. So, it seems you must be an admirer of her governmemt's economic policy measures? Maybe if you give Osborne the time to get over the inherited mess then we'll all be better off again in a few years time?

Are you on drugs?

No. (Notice the full and concise answer).

Questiion - are "we" better or worse off than 30 years ago?

Your post appears to be based on a quite ridiculous assumption that no company in the world ever pays any corporation tax.

That's not what he's suggested. If a company can domicile their tax affairs in a country where they pay no tax whatsover, why would they domicile in a country where they pay any %?

Perhaps if you were a company currently paying corporation tax here and considering a move maybe a lower tax rate might - and I say might - encourage you stay here for tax purposes. I am not suggesting for one minute that the likes of Google will relocate here on the back of a corporate tax reduction.

If a reduction the corporate tax rate increases revenues then society as a whole will benefit - would you not agree?

Being able to lay out a letter should be a given, being able to type an e-mail in a coherent fashion and being reasonably competent in basic office suite i.e. Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Speaking on a telephone is a life skill that should be taught at school

So parents have no responsibility in developing these "life skills" then?

It isn't based in that at all. How did you come to that daft conclusion?

Any company who can relocate it's HQ for a lower tax rate will do so and plenty have. Why pay 21% instead of 23% when you can pay 0%?

An interesting one is going to be what happens if Scotland decided on independence. The SNP are saying they will reduce the corporation tax rate to 18% undercutting the rest of the UK rate. It might be more feasible for national UK companies who at the moment can't indulge in the tax avoidance the multinationals like Google can to relocate north of the border.

Should we indulge in a race to the bottom in the event this happened or should we just reform the tax laws so this kind of avoidance is no longer legal?



It won't. Companies that can avoid corporation tax will carry on avoiding it. Those that can't avoid it (basically any non-multinational company with its HQ here who can't move) will be paying less tax so revenues will decrease.

Sorry I thought you meant from the point of view of a regular person rather than specifically from a teachers point of view.
I'd agree that's how teachers saw it in the past, but as you yourself acknowledge, the role and duties of a teacher have changed and become a harder job. I would probably apply similar thoughts to nurses, where the role has evolved massively over time and become a much more demanding job.


I don't quite know whether behavioural standards have dropped but I'd agree there is less respect and I'd also suggest a more selfish attitude. However, I believe these to be things which can be fairly easily changed if kids are put in the right environment. I see it regularly with the kids I coach. Fortunately I'm in the position where I can concentrate on fewer kids. Around 1:15 instead of 1:30 in schools.

But as someone said, most companies that make profits here do pay corporation tax.

How do you define a company "that can't move" as this seems central to your idea?

PS Just heard the number one reason why Scotland will vote against independence on The One Show. Apparently the major supermarkets say they will put prices up significantly oin Scotland if it becomes independent. Currently Scottish prices are effectively subsidised by the rest of the UK. If independent Scotland would be treated as 'international' by the supermarkets and so have separate pricing to the rest of the UK. can't see the average Scottish punter voting for that whatever the CT rate!

Probably the 90% plus of companies who are not global corporations, can't recall the exact stat but when we used to do our marketing we were always told that the sector of employees who employ less than 500 bodies represent 90+% of the total number of businesses.

Why is every multi national not domiciled in a tax haven then? BP is a multi national corporation every opportunity to relocate where it likes and pay no tax - yet it chooses to domicile here - so your point of why pay 30% when you can pay nothing doesn't ring true?

Your last point doesn't ring true either - lower corporation tax actually increases take, why would that be?