John Connell: The Blog

I agree with very lit­tle of what Michael Gove says about edu­ca­tion, and I agree even less with his cur­rent poli­cies, but I did enjoy hear­ing England’s Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion, a Tory, at the Edu­ca­tion World Forum ear­lier in the week, quot­ing the Ital­ian Marx­ist Anto­nio Gram­sci’s line about Pes­simism of the Intel­lect, Opti­mism of the Will.

I just can­not imag­ine any of the long string of Eng­lish edu­ca­tion min­is­ters under Labour quot­ing any­thing other than some dreary party man­i­festo, or more likely some banal New Labour pol­icy state­ment. I won­der if Ed Miliband will be able to bring a lit­tle intel­lect, a mod­icum of reflec­tion, back to the Labour Party — his father, I am sure, would want that were he still around.

Tech­no­rati Tags: michael gove, anto­nio gram­sci, edu­ca­tion, new labour, edu­ca­tion world forum