How to Fix Education

Many people do not realise the reason we have a 6 week summer holiday for pupils and teachers. It is because in the previous century children were used for the summer harvest, basically as slave labour. Fortunately, child slavery has been abolished, but not the summer holidays. There is no reason for the summer holidays being so long or for teachers to have so much holiday during the year. Under our education reform manifesto we would do the following to fix the education system: 

1. Teachers are professionals and should get paid and work like professional white-collar workers. They should work 9 til 5 weekdays only, like other professionals. They should have between 25 and 30 days holiday per year.  
2. Teachers should only teach because that is what they are good at. They should not mark or do any subject preparation, this should be done by the teaching support staff, including training teachers. Teachers should have at least 3 teaching skills, a main subject such as English or Maths and a creative or life skill, such as music, computers, economics or politics.
3. Pupils from secondary school onwards shall work 9 to 5 to prepare them for real life. The morning part of the day shall be for academic education and the afternoon shall be for creative and career-based training, to train each pupil for life or University. 
4. The academic subjects shall include Maths, English, Economics, Finance, English law, English culture, Internet security, general science, nutrition and health, politics and current affairs. 
5. Many of the academic subjects, although in the classroom, should be taught centrally over Zoom to all UK classrooms, so that the curriculum and delivery is consistent. The teacher will then enforce and test the learning in the class and over zoom. This gives student who are unable to attend due to incapacity or illness a chance to still take part. All session will be recorded for students to catch up if they cannot attend. This will keep the whole country in step, and everyone gets the same an appropriate education. Those who fall behind can catch up online. 
6. Afternoon sessions will be based on the interest of students and any activity they like or could excel in. It would cover all sports, online skills such as gaming and website design, fashion, music, acting, driving and any skills needed for a future career. We should try to seek out as early as possible pupils that excel in certain areas, such as football, golf, gaming, go-cart racing or music. Pupils that have no interest in any creative activity would provide support to all the afternoon activities in their school or a local hub, learn first aid, provide services to the local community or similar useful skills. 
7. Schools would be arranged into hubs, so that between each hub all facilities can be provided for the region, e.g. one school specializes in football, another in music, another in acting etc, so that between the hub all activities could be covered. In the afternoon the pupils would be taken to the hub school of their activity.  An activity would be provide for if more than 10 students across the hub want to explore an activity and the activity could lead to a career. 
8. Technology would be used as much as possible including biometrics for class attendance and all school activities.  
9. Each school will have a computer centre, kitchen, gym and sports facilities as well as specialized facilities required for that hub. A school will become a revenue centre and run 24/7. The kitchen can become a café and offer cheap places to eat for the local economy on a 24/7 basis, outside of school lunch. The gym and sports facilities will allow members of the public on 24/7 basis except in afternoons during the creative hours. Outside of school hours the computer room would be used for revenue related activities such as financial trading on global markets, Bitcoin training or training in other computer skills. The school will be run by business managers rather than Headmasters, with a view to optimizing the revenue streams of the school.  Headmasters will do what they are good at and manage and optimize the teaching staff, recruit teaching staff and ensure staff are trained in between their lesson schedule, liaise with other schools in their hub to optimize logistics for afternoon activities and to teach where staff are absent. 
10. Each school will become a centre of excellence in the community as well as a revenue centre. No child shall have any excuse that they didn’t get a good, balanced and useable education. Where there are difficult and disruptive children, each hub shall have a dedicated building to provide special attention and support to encourage these pupils to work their way back into mainstream education.