B1 – Intermediate
The UK government has cut school budgets. Schools have little money to spend and have to reduce cost on many things. Thousands of headteachers have made difficult decisions about how to spend their school’s money.
Read the article below and be ready to answer the questions that follow.
https://breakingnewsenglish.com/1903/190326-head-teacher-0.html
Discussion Questions:
- What do you think about the decision made by the headteacher in the article?
- What can you say about your country’s education system?
- Does your government pay more attention to issues in the education sector?
- Do schools in your country get enough funds?
- What other problems related to the education system do you have in your country and how can these issues be addressed?
10 replies on “Headteacher Has to Clean School Toilets”
1. I do not agree with the measures taken by this school. I don’t agree with the government either. There must be a minimum of money for basic things.
2. My country’s education system is very good compared with the schools in the article. I have never heard of any problems with the cleaners or if the parents have to provide more money for this kind of things.
3. I think so. My government pay more attention to issues in the education sector. At this moment no problems.
4. Yes, the schools in my country get enough funds.
5. One of the problems with the education system in my country is the model. Each government puts a new education law or changes something from the previous one. It is not good for an education system to change every 2-3 years.
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What do you think about the decision made by the headteacher in the article?
It´s a way to stay alive a school model without finantiation. She wants to continue with an open school.
What can you say about your country’s education system?
In Spain we have a good education system in all the educational ratios except for abandonment
Does your government pay more attention to issues in the education sector?
Yes, education is a very important cost in annual budgets. There are more problems with the educational models and the diferents political parties. We had had 10 diferents educational laws in 30 years.
Do schools in your country get enough funds?
I think yes, there aren´t financial problems like in the article for UK.
What other problems related to the education system do you have in your country and how can these issues be addressed?
I think that it´s necesary a better relation betten the employability and the studies, now there is a tendency for University studies with problems in our labour market in qualified technical positions.
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1. What do you think about the decision made by the headteacher in the article?
He has made the right decision as a professional to protect your school
2. What can you say about your country’s education system?
We have a mixed system with public and private schools, where some of the private schools are subsidized to receive children in the same conditions as in the public school.
3. Does your government pay more attention to issues in the education sector?
Yes, every time a party reaches the government, the previous education law changes, giving rise to the fact that we do not have a stable system, which entails a high detriment for the students.
4. Do schools in your country get enough funds?
More money is always needed to invest in education, but in Spain we are very far from the situation described in the article.
5. What other problems related to the education system do you have in your country and how can these issues be addressed?
One of the problems we have is the integration of children who arrive from another country with a different language and with a different level of knowledge.
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1- In my opinion, she is a very envolved head teacher. She made difficult decisions to make sure she keep the school open for her students.
2- I think the level of education in my country is getting lower and lower. Students are allowed to move on to the next course with suspended subjects. This means that many students do not acquire the knowledge expected at their age. The education system is based on memorizing all, I think it would be better to introduce more practice.
3- I think that the governants should agree on the education law with the rest of the political parties. In my country, each time a goverment is elected, if the education law had been created by an opposing government, it creates its own education law. This doesn’t help to have a good education quality.
4-It depends on the type of school. Public schools usually have funding problems, private schools do not usually have these types of problems.
5- In public schools, the student-teacher ratio is very high. a single teacher must serve too many students so he cannot give them a quality education.
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1. It seems to me a very honorable and altruistic decision on her part, without a doubt she likes her work a lot and her passion shows, even having to go to those extremes.
2. Education in my country is very good, that is, each institute will have its problems and others, but most are usually in perfect condition, what I don’t like is the system, they put it in your head that you have to memorize everything , and that is useless, there will come a time when you will forget. The best form of study is practice, based on doing it over and over again, and failing as many times as necessary.
3. Really, not as much as they should, but it is also necessary to take into account that our government is full of thieves, people who only want to come to power to do what they want, raise their salaries and ignore others political parties, just fighting and insulting each other without solving anything.
4. No, not enough, there are schools that have more than others, and schools that have very little when they need more, how do you want to improve a country that does not help the fundamental parts for its progress.
Instead of answering the last question, I prefer to focus on an article that I read one day, and it was about what education was like in Japan, we all know that in Japan there is a lot of discipline.
In Japan, I think it was the children’s first 4 academic years, they don’t have exams, they teach them the fundamentals and basics of society, they teach them values, I don’t know, I found it very interesting. In the institutes, they have clubs on the side, so that they dedicate their time to whatever they want, art clubs, soccer, basketball, tennis, swimming, archery, I don’t know, there is everything, and they have a budget for each club.
I think the education in Japan is great, I mean, I don’t know if they will have cleaners there, but all the students are in charge of cleaning the classes, the corridors, the bathrooms, everything, they are assigned to a group of students, and then class clean their assigned part, and also have festivals in their institutes, or volunteer around the city collecting garbage, I don’t know, I think we have a lot to learn from that system.
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