The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Pedagogical Panopticon

And, speaking of Deputy Conservative triumphs (one hates to think of any getting lost in the throng), here is how Wee Nicky and his chums have begun dismantling New Labour's surveillance state: they haven't. A series of freedom of information requests has disclosed an average of one CCTV camera for every thirty-eight pupils in just over two thousand secondary schools and academies. A spokesbeing for the Department of Gove Bibles pushed the responsibility onto head teachers and blathered about the Data Protection Act while decorously omitting mention of what measures are being taken to enforce it. Two hundred of the schools had cameras in the pupils' toilets and changing rooms, bringing to mind a line I once read about "pedagogic filthy-mindedness masquerading as moral vigilance". I can't find the line, but I think it was Orwell's; I believe he was discussing the education system during that warmly glowing fag-end of the British Empire on whose return the Conservatives in all our political parties are so buttock-clenchingly bent. Then again, perhaps it was a Vatican encyclical. Anyway, Big Brother Watch and the GMB trade union expressed a degree of indignation, while Wee Nicky and his chums sat fidgeting at the back of the room and hoping nobody would see them.

1 Comments:

  • At 10:50 pm , Anonymous Madame X said...

    And all they will discover is that students pick their noses with astonishing frequency. As with crime at large, however, it will have no impact on the amount of bullying or smoking in the stalls. I attended Catholic school when mild forms of torture were quite acceptable and yet no one squealed on who hung the pig's nose on the vice principal's door.

     

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