Friday, October 23, 2009

Inefficient services

A colleague was telling about her young son having had several ear operations recently. He's all right but what she noticed with her manager's eye, was that for a twenty minute procedure they had to sit around in the hospital for eight hours. Of course, she's grateful for the care but surely they can organise people's work and lives better than that.

On a similar theme of how to use time efficiently, she explained that before her son was off school, she got some work for him to do at home. They spent only half an hour a day on it, but when he got back to school the teacher announced that he was right up to where the class was. How can it take five hours of class work to match thirty minutes of one to one work, she asks? Why should it take ten times as long to cover material in class as it does at home? No wonder some home educators seem to hot house their children. I do think that schools need more teachers and smaller groups more than they need extra expensive computer equipment.

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