David Richardson

Marratech seems to work a bit better than NetMeeting. One of its advantages is that you join a virtual room (which can be booked), and you can put a password on entry to keep out unauthorised visitors!

There's a lot in what you say, Graham, but I think it helps to keep two types of video conferencing separate from each other: ISDN video conferencing needs studios, technicians, bridges and dedicated lines. Desktop video conferencing needs a computer with a broadband connection, a cheap webcam and a headset. I've been using ISDN video conferencing fairly regularly since 1991, and it's a bit old-fashioned here in Sweden now. There are about 240 study centres all over the country with studios, so there's no problem linking two studios up. Desktop video conferencing is only just making its appearance, at least as *functioning* technology. As you can imagine, there are all sorts of practical and administrative problems with ISDN video conferencing, mainly caused by the fact that they're a sort of resource bottleneck. You have to book them, you can only use special rooms, and the students have to turn up. The sound and video are pretty good, though, and it's easy to set up activities which are genuinely communicative. I've done plenty of ISDN video conferences where there have been 50+ participants spread out over a very wide geographical area. Desktop video conferencing is a different kettle of fish altogether. It's a small group activity, and people can do it from home, without prior booking. We've just started working with a new teacher, who lives about 500 miles away, for example, and we were able to link the three of us in the course team up from our respective apartments and go through lesson planning. That you can't do via ISDN video conferencing, unless you want the huge cost of a studio at home (and you can book a bridge). The major advantage video conferencing gives to me as a language teacher is 'synchronous audio and video' - in other words different people can speak to each other and listen to each other at the same time from different places. It's a whole other experience than participating in a text-based chat, or posting entries on a discussion forum like this. The participants can also download the whiteboard at the end of the session too, and go over it again at their ease and leisure. And then, I can put up on the whiteboard more or less anything I've got on my hard disk. Very useful for showing phonetic symbols … However, there's not much point in using it, unless there's some geographical or logistical point to it - easy to find in a big country like Sweden, less easy in more compact places!

I'm fairly sure that Marratech *isn't* open source, although it is multi-platform (i.e. there are Mac and Linux versions available). The server software is what costs, but the client software is free. You're supposed to be able to do point-to-point video conferencing with the client software, but I've never tried that. If you want to try out Marratech with me, just send me a mail and we'll decide on a time. We're using it all the time at the moment for all sorts of things (the Aberystwyth link-up has been very successful). I'm a bit cynical about the claims of computer programmes … my judgement is that Marratech is the best one I've used to far, though. The whiteboard is excellent, the audio works very well indeed, but the video is still a bit iffy. However, in our practice, the video isn't quite so important.

I haven't read Hirsch's book, but your account made me think of the cyclical nature of educational thinking. At the introduction for new teacher trainees when I started my training, they read out for us the 'empty vessels' passage from 'Hard Times'. Gradgrind, the teacher, starts by telling Cissie, the new girl in a Lancaster-method classroom, that Cissie isn't her name, and that her father is a farrier, rather than a circus horse-trainer. Then he asks her "what is a horse?" The poor girl cannot say anything, which, for Gradgrind, is that she doesn't know a single fact about "one of the commonest of animals". He selects another boy, who reels out a rote-learned list of 'facts' about horses (such as how many teeth they have … but nothing about the sense of power you feel when you stand next to a high-spirited horse) and tells Cissie, "Now, you know what a horse is". In other words, my attitude is that the American Romantics were reacting against the Lancaster-method 'factual', 'knowledge-based' teaching … and were reacted against by the rote-learning of the mid-20th century … which was reacted against by the more 'Romantic' learning of the late 20th century … which is being reacted against … perhaps by Hirsch. I suppose it all depends what society wants out of its schools. At the moment the premium seems to be on exclusion and elitism. In a few years, as our populations age and there's a shortage of people of working age, we'll suddenly find that inclusiveness is once again self-evident. Another remembrance that comes to mind is the difference in attitudes to pilot training in the 1930s and 1940s. In peace-time, only a special breed of person could possibly learn to fly a plane (an Oxbridge education seemed to be one of the essential ingredients). When war came, however, and many more pilots were needed than were available, suddenly it was discovered that all sorts of people could become pilots. Another exercise we had during teacher training was to answer the question "why do we have exams in schools?" The most plausible line of reasoning I heard went like this: society can't afford to send everyone to university, so we have to have some way of filtering out all those pupils we can't afford to provide with a university education. If this holds true, then we'll tend to open the gates a crack or two when we're a bit more flush with money, or in greater need of university graduates and close them again when the reverse is true.

Nu till Dalibors andra fråga om kopplingen mellan betyg och kunskap … Problemet är att vi inte har definierat för oss själva vad vi menar med 'kunskap'. När jag försöker tolka det som sägs om kunskap, så verkar det ofta finnas en likhetstecken mellan 'kunskap' och 'faktakunskap'. Sedan beror det mycket på vilka fakta man bestämmer sig för att räkna. Jag har arbetat i flera olika utbildningssystem, och slutsatsen jag har kommit fram till är att det inte finns något 'objektivt' kunskap - även i naturvetenskapliga ämnen. (Det är intressant att lyssna till diskussioner om nytillkommna studenter bland högskolelärare i fysik och kemi - det är rätt ofta att de säger att de måste få studenterna att 'unlearn' många vanföreställningar om fysikens natur som de har lärt sig i skolan.) Så hur gör man? Beskrivning av det brittiska systemet för att examinera historia som jag har nyss lagt in har en för mig avgörande detalj: det bygger på en konsensus bland kvalificerade och erfarna ämneslärare. Dessa lärare har uppbackning från statistiker och analytiker, men i slutändan är det ett yrkeskår som sätter standarden. Bedömningen är visst subjektiv, men poängen är att se till att subjektiviteten redovisas och analyseras öppet, och att den baseras inte på en alltför begränsad grupp individer. Det som det skulle krävas för att införa ett liknande system i Sverige är först och främst en 'uppgradering' av lärarnas yrkesstatus. Man måste ge tid, fortbildning och resurser till skapandet av standard som gällde i hela landet … och kontrollen måste släppas av dem centralplacerade tjänstemän i utbildningsdepartementet. Det skulle bli en lång och smärtsam process och jag är långt ifrån säker att man skulle orka. Mycket mer sannolikt för mig är att det kommer att utvecklas två bedömningssystem i Europa: ett som skapas inom det egna landet och som gäller bara för det landet; och ett annat som gäller både innanför och utanför det egna landets gränser. Det senare skulle likna IB mycket mer än dem nuvarande centralprov. Min erfarenhet från ett system med välutvecklade prov är att provet bestämmer hur hela utbildningssystem är (ung. som nu, med "vad måste vi läsa till provet?"). Det som IB testar är det som undervisas i, så tricket är att se till att innehållet i provet och sättet att testa motsvarar det som vi lärare tror bäst överensstämmer med den verkligheten vi upplever!

Jag ska komma tillbaka till Dalibors frågeställning i annat inlägg, men jag tänkte förmedla lite bakgrund om hur man konstruerar prov i systemen som arbetar fram prov som IB. Min far har varit 'Chief Examiner' på Oxford and Cambridge Examinations Board i historia i många år, och så här fungerade provkonstruktion i Storbritannien fram till för ett par år sedan. För det första var Examinations Board ett 'dotterbolag' av Oxford och Cambridge Universities (dvs oberoende både av skolorna och departmentet). Numera är dem nya 'boards' fristående bolag. Proceduren började med att utvalda lärare i olika skolor runt om i landet uppmuntrades att skriva tentamensfrågor (vanligtvis av essä typ), efter Examination Boards kursplan. Dessa lärare rekryterades via lärartidningar, och vanligtvis måste ha en Masters Degree i historia, samt minst 10 års erfarenhet av undervisning. Sedan satts tillsammans flera olika tentamen, som testades grundligt enligt ett antal principer, inkl. huruvida de kunde jämföras med alla dem andra tentamen i historia som hade använts över åren, och huruvida dem olika alternativ som eleven kunde välja att svara på var jämlika varandra. Sedan testades dem olika frågor var för sig med elever från skolor i delar av landet, där Oxford och Cambridge *inte* erbjöd sina tentamen, och det kontrollerades noggrant för att se att reliabilitet var så hög som möjligt, ifrån 'frågans' perspektiv (dvs att frågorna var så formulerade att få elever blev vilseledda av dem). Då, i februari varje år, samlades 'rättningslaget', med Chief Examiner som lagledare. Alla dessa rättare hade samma bakgrund som de som skrev frågorna, dvs Master Degree i historia, samt minst 10 års erfarenhet som lärare. Provsvaren gicks igenom, och det kontrollerades noggrant att alla som rättade använde samma standard och principer. Det fanns ofta anledning till justera tentamen lite grand, så att svåra frågor fick 'lättare' rättning och vice versa. En av övningar var alltid att alla rättade samma svar och fick ge sin bedömning oberoende av varandra. Sedan diskuterades hur man hade kommit fram till bedömningen. Andra veckan i juni skrev eleverna sina tentamen i historia. Dessa samlades upp och skickades med bud till Examinations Board, och sedan direkt hem till den rättande lärare. Mina barndomsminne av juni och början på juli är av höga av tentamen som rättades en efter en och resultat som skrevs in på speciella blanketter. När tentaminor hade rättats, då började en komplicerade statistiska process, vilken innebar en jämförelse både med ett historiskt underlag av tentamen i historia över en period som sträckte sig 50 år bakåt i tiden, för att kontrollera att samma prestation i år fick samma resultat, och med alla dem andra ämnen som examinerades, så att man kunde se till att den standarden av prestation som resulterade i högsta betyg i matematik var jämförbart med den för historia. Det är därför att eleverna skriver sina tentamen i juni, men får inte tillbaka resultatet före slutet på augusti. Sedan, i september, erbjöds ämneslärare att delta i möten med examinatorer för att diskutera tentamen som hade nyss gått. Stämde det med vad stod i kursplanen. Fanns det någon fråga som lärarna tyckte var ojust eller felaktigt på något sätt? Vad tyckte lärarna om årets tentamen? Resultaten av dessa möten matades in i det kommande årets tentamenskonstruktion. --------- Det är inte min mening i detta inlägg att jämföra system, snarare att försöka beskriva hur ett av skolor oberoende system kan se ut. Eftersom jag har min bakgrund i detta system, känner jag ibland stor sympati för svenska lärare som måste mer eller mindre konstruera sina egna system varje skola eller kommun för sig. Gör man det, så är man väldigt utsatt för påtryckningar från många håll. Jag minns en diskussion med mamman till en av min dotters kompisar, vid fotbollsplan. Hon var lärare i samhällskunskap på gymnasienivå, och gruvade sig för betygssättningen i det nya systemet (efter den sista gymnasiereformen). Kommunen hade beordrat skolan att inte ge någon elev IG. Pengar till stödundervisningen fanns inte heller, och den läraren som klagat riskerade att stämplas som 'illojal' och därmed gå miste om en löneökning. Så hon kände att hon måste ge stödundervisning i sin ledig tid … och det fungerade inte heller för att få dem eleverna det gällde att hamna på den rätta sidan av gränsen. Mitt råd till henne var enkelt: sudda bort 'I'-et. Kommunen tydligen brydde sig inte om utbildningens kvalite, bara om slutbetygsbokstäver, och det var ingen som kunde komma in på högskolan med bara 'G' i samhällskunskap. Jag vet inte om hon och hennes kollegor gjorde som jag sa, men det kunde dem ha gjort, utan att någon utomstående kunde ha gripit in.

It took us a while to realise that we were very rare in making this kind of calculation of hours/tutor - nearly every other course or institution we looked at worked almost entirely on guesswork. The point we made successfully right at the start was that Internet tutors need staff support programmes just as campus-based tutors do (remember that we're working in Sweden - the country of 90% union membership). Another of the factors we have developed over the years is that a single tutor should not be tutoring more than 90 students over a 4-month period. The optimal figure looks as if it's around 60. This, of course, helps us to plan our staffing of tutors - but it's also an expression of the potential for Internet tutoring to be a lonely and asocial job. We need our tutors to contribute to the students' learning experiences in a positive way, and they can only do that if they've got a life of their own. The tutor who's worked with us longest is a freelance music teacher in a small town outside Brisbane. I've often thought that that is the ideal background for an Internet tutor. You need to be able to tell the music student something that will both inspire them and get them to come back for more! As you can imagine, I am completely unsurprised at the near-total failure rate of on-line courses that are run on a 'shrink-wrapped product + call-centre' basis.

There's been a bit of stir in Sweden about migrant labour. Before she was murdered, Anna Lindh made a big point of Sweden's refusal to have any kind of transitionary rules for work and residence permits for people from the new member countries. Then Göran Persson dropped a comment about 'social tourism' (i.e. people who'd come to Sweden for the welfare benefits), and the Social Democrats introduced a proposal to parliament to bring in transitionary regulations about having an established job/place to live, etc before a migrant from the new member countries could settle in Sweden. However, last week (Thursday), these regulations were voted down by Parliament, so now there are no transitionary rules or regulations at all. What people are most worked up about here are unscrupulous employers undercutting wages with workers from the new member countries, rather than people coming here and living off the state. However, the famous Swedish bureaucracy is cranking itself up to start checking new migrants very carefully. My guess is that it will all be a storm in a teacup - and that life will go on as it did before.

Here in Sweden enlargement has been a bit of a non-issue. There have been a few articles in the newspapers about the new members, but enlargement isn't a hot topic. It'll be interesting to see how many speakers at the May Day meetings today mention enlargement - my guess is 'very few'. Perhaps this is an expression of the wider failure of the EU to make much of an impression on Swedish society - at least overtly. I'm sure that enlargement will lead to all sorts of benefits for Sweden, particularly in contacts with Poland and the Baltic States, but I'm also sure that people here won't connect these benefits with enlargement, or the EU. They'll see them as the natural continuation of a process which has already been going on for years. I'm not sure if you can read this is as positive for the EU or not - given the generally poor image the EU has here, it might be better if the practical benefits of enlargement *aren't* associated with it! People might accept them more readily that way.

We faced this question when we started designing on-line courses with Internet tutors about 10 years ago. Once the work on a course is broken down into elements, you have to be able to set a 'time limit' on each element (which is the equivalent of giving the element a price tag), or else the amount of work quickly spirals out of control. The answer we came up with was partly to look very carefully at course design to make sure that we had properly defined (for ourselves as much as the students) what the point of each part of the course was; partly to make realistic assessments of the amount of time it would take tutors to mark each piece of work; and partly to encourage as much peer assessment as possible (reducing the amount of detailed comment from the course team, but also having a strong educational value). Over the years, we've learned to add 10 hours/30 students to the top of all our estimations, since it seems this is the average amount of unscheduled time it takes us to deal with all the extra contacts on-line courses create. We keep a close eye on all these estimates in order to make sure that any 'slack' in our allocation of time isn't being transferred on an unpaid basis to Internet tutors. This is good discipline for us - it makes us keep an eye on the educational content of our web-based courses all the time, instead of hoping that the teachers will cover up the design faults by working more without getting paid for it.

There's been another article in the Guardian that I feel has a lot of relevance to this thread. I'm just pasting the whole thing here, since it's all so interesting! (I promise not to do this too often!) It was not written by journalists, but by 52 British diplomats and former diplomats with experience of the Arab world. I'll just lift one quotation out: "However much Iraqis may yearn for a democratic society, the belief that one could now be created by the coalition is naive. This is the view of virtually all independent specialists on the region, both in Britain and in America." But here's the whole thing, so that you can see it in context: Comment Doomed to failure in the Middle East A letter from 52 former senior British diplomats to Tony Blair Tuesday April 27, 2004 The Guardian Dear Prime Minister, We the undersigned former British ambassadors, high commissioners, governors and senior international officials, including some who have long experience of the Middle East and others whose experience is elsewhere, have watched with deepening concern the policies which you have followed on the Arab-Israel problem and Iraq, in close cooperation with the United States. Following the press conference in Washington at which you and President Bush restated these policies, we feel the time has come to make our anxieties public, in the hope that they will be addressed in parliament and will lead to a fundamental reassessment. The decision by the US, the EU, Russia and the UN to launch a "road map" for the settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict raised hopes that the major powers would at last make a determined and collective effort to resolve a problem which, more than any other, has for decades poisoned relations between the west and the Islamic and Arab worlds. The legal and political principles on which such a settlement would be based were well established: President Clinton had grappled with the problem during his presidency; the ingredients needed for a settlement were well understood and informal agreements on several of them had already been achieved. But the hopes were ill-founded. Nothing effective has been done either to move the negotiations forward or to curb the violence. Britain and the other sponsors of the road map merely waited on American leadership, but waited in vain. Worse was to come. After all those wasted months, the international community has now been confronted with the announcement by Ariel Sharon and President Bush of new policies which are one-sided and illegal and which will cost yet more Israeli and Palestinian blood. Our dismay at this backward step is heightened by the fact that you yourself seem to have endorsed it, abandoning the principles which for nearly four decades have guided international efforts to restore peace in the Holy Land and which have been the basis for such successes as those efforts have produced. This abandonment of principle comes at a time when rightly or wrongly we are portrayed throughout the Arab and Muslim world as partners in an illegal and brutal occupation in Iraq. The conduct of the war in Iraq has made it clear that there was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement. All those with experience of the area predicted that the occupation of Iraq by the coalition forces would meet serious and stubborn resistance, as has proved to be the case. To describe the resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful. Policy must take account of the nature and history of Iraq, the most complex country in the region. However much Iraqis may yearn for a democratic society, the belief that one could now be created by the coalition is naive. This is the view of virtually all independent specialists on the region, both in Britain and in America. We are glad to note that you and the president have welcomed the proposals outlined by Lakhdar Brahimi. We must be ready to provide what support he requests, and to give authority to the UN to work with the Iraqis themselves, including those who are now actively resisting the occupation, to clear up the mess. The military actions of the coalition forces must be guided by political objectives and by the requirements of the Iraq theatre itself, not by criteria remote from them. It is not good enough to say that the use of force is a matter for local commanders. Heavy weapons unsuited to the task in hand, inflammatory language, the current confrontations in Najaf and Falluja, all these have built up rather than isolated the opposition. The Iraqis killed by coalition forces probably total 10-15,000 (it is a disgrace that the coalition forces themselves appear to have no estimate), and the number killed in the last month in Falluja alone is apparently several hundred including many civilian men, women and children. Phrases such as "We mourn each loss of life. We salute them, and their families for their bravery and their sacrifice," apparently referring only to those who have died on the coalition side, are not well judged to moderate the passions these killings arouse. We share your view that the British government has an interest in working as closely as possible with the US on both these related issues, and in exerting real influence as a loyal ally. We believe that the need for such influence is now a matter of the highest urgency. If that is unacceptable or unwelcome there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure. Yours faithfully, Sir Graham Boyce (ambassador to Egypt 1999-2001); Sir Terence Clark (ambassador to Iraq 1985-89); Francis Cornish (ambassador to Israel 1998-2001); Sir James Craig (ambassador to Saudi Arabia 1979-84); Ivor Lucas (ambassador to Syria 1982-84); Richard Muir (ambassador to Kuwait 1999-2002); Sir Crispin Tickell (British permanent representative to the UN 1987-90); Sir Harold (Hooky) Walker (ambassador to Iraq 1990-91), and 44 others Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 -------- I find very little to take issue with here. The coalition's policies are "doomed to failure", in my opinion too, so the "security situation" will never "allow" elections to be held, whilst American troops are in Iraq. When those troops leave (in a very foreseeable future, in my view, since I just don't think that the US political system is designed for a kind of 'Haitian' occupation of Iraq of 50 years or so of constant guerrilla warfare), the pro-Western, secular elements of Iraqi society will find their own position totally compromised by association with the Americans' ideas - even if they themselves had nothing to do with it. If elections are held without US troops leaving, my best estimate is an Algerian situation, where elections will be annulled to stop an Islamic fundamentalist party winning. When Ayatollah Sistani's supporters come to power, Sharia law will be introduced - won't it?

Once again, I understand your aspirations and I share them, but I think you're being a bit naive about how to achieve them. If there are elections in Iraq any time in the foreseeable future, the most likely outcome is a fairly clean sweep by an Islamisist party, which will probably resemble the parties which rule Iran, the neighbouring Shiite state. On the other hand, had the Americans *not* invaded illegally, but sought to bring down Saddam Hussein by other means, directed more at the regime than the people, there is a good chance that the secular nature of Iraq could have been saved. What Bush's invasion has achieved is a situation where to be pro-Western and secular is to be a traitor.

I've been working with the technical services of the Swedish Army for a good number of years, helping to train them to speak the 'right' kind of English when they're on peace support operations (as they're called). There's a useful distinction made in their joint military doctrine (which has been adapted from UN and NATO practice) between war, peace enforcement and peace keeping. The difference between war and peace enforcement is partiality and impartiality. If you're a party to the conflict or supporting a party to the conflict, you're at war. If you're not, you could be eligible for peace enforcement duties. The difference between peace enforcement and peace keeping is the consent of the civilian population. If they consent to you being there, you can take part in peace keeping. If they don't, you have to enforce the peace. The ultimate aim of all peace support operations is not to be necessary - in other words, peace keeping not even peace enforcement. It strikes me that the British and US forces are parties to the conflict. This rules them out as peace enforcers - what they're doing at the moment is continuing to fight the war. The longer they stay, the longer the war continues. It may be that one day soon we'll be in a situation where peace enforcement, or even, let's hope, peace keeping can occur. We'd first have to find armies which were not parties to the conflict (i.e. none of the armies currently in Iraq). Ideally we'd need armies which were there by the consent of the people in Iraq. I suppose that the ideal one would be … an Iraqi Army, but it'd have to be an army which had no ties at all with any of the parties to the conflict, including the Kurdish peshmerga.

I understand your sentiments about 'cutting and running' and I fully support the need to keep the offer of help and commitment available. However, I really don't think that the alternative of *not* cutting and running is still available - any more than it was to any of the other colonial powers in the last days of their rule. The only alternatives I can see cover the *manner* of the departure of the occupiers. Let's look at some of those alternatives: a) the Vietnam pullout - with nearly 30 years of post-conflict hostility from the USA, and a refusal to take any responsibility for reparation or rehabilitation; the Angola pullout - where the departing Portuguese systematically destroyed everything they could, down to smashing lightbulbs and burning the plans of Luanda's sewerage system; c) the Hong Kong pullout - an ordered departure, which took place within a legal framework. I feel that the odds are on alternative a). Unfortunately, the option of 'saving' a moderate Iraq from Islamic fundamentalism disappeared when Bush and Blair invaded unilaterally - the only question I can see now is how we shorten the period of chaos Iraq is headed for. I think that there is prima facie evidence that US troops (especially in Fallouja) have committed war crimes - at least exactly similar behaviour carried out by soldiers of other nationalities has been described that way. I'm thinking of their cavalier disregard for the provisions of Geneva conventions about the treatment of non-combatants. How on earth can armed forces with that charge hanging over them possibly have a positive role to play in the reconstruction of the country?

(This is an edited version of a post I put up this morning - I'm afraid I hadn't checked the forum carefully enough, and started a new topic, when I should have joined this one). I've thought of four indicators, which might or might not give accurate and comparable information (I'm no mathematician or statistician): 1. My gross pay per month in euros: 2849 euros (at an exchange rate of 9.3 Swedish kronor/euro) 2. My net pay (i.e. after tax and all other deductions) per month in euros:1935 euros 3. My living costs (in my case rent on my 4-bedroomed flat, including all heating bills): 677 euros 4. Value-Added Tax standard rate: 25% ------ Some additional information: 1. I work at something like a polytechnic in Sweden, but I think that my salary is comparable to that of school teachers. In Sweden schools are the responsibility of local councils, and pay rates differ from area to area. I get this money for working 1750 hours/year. However, a) 240 hours are 'free' for personal skills development and administration; we work a system of 'factors', so that an hour spent in the classroom (which is only actually 45 minutes …) is equal to 3 or 4.5 of these 1750 hours, to take preparation and follow-up into account. 2. This is all - in Sweden all taxes, local and national, are deducted at source, so this net pay is arrived at after local and state taxes + national insurance contributions have been deducted. I don't pay anything else in the form of 'taxes', 'charges' or 'contributions' to the state, apart from consumption tax (VAT) specified in point 4. 3. We rent a flat and have to pay electricity charges over and above this rent, which includes the cost of central heating, though. If we were to buy a house or flat in the town I live in, we'd end up paying marginally less than this in total mortgage repayments, insurance, heating, etc. ------- Is anyone else prepared to take the plunge?

Sorry I showed my ignorance! I'll repost my contribution in the right place.

I wonder if there's any enthusiasm for sharing information about what we all get paid … Well, here goes, because in Sweden this is all a matter of public knowledge (they publish the final taxation tables with exact details of everyone's earnings, wealth, etc in the local newspapers each year!). I've thought of four indicators, which might or might not give accurate and comparable information (I'm no mathematician or statistician): 1. My gross pay per month in euros: 2849 euros (at an exchange rate of 9.3 Swedish kronor/euro) 2. My net pay (i.e. after tax and all other deductions) per month in euros:1935 euros 3. My living costs (in my case rent on my 4-bedroomed flat, including all heating bills): 677 euros 4. Value-Added Tax standard rate: 25% ------ Some additional information: 1. I work at something like a polytechnic in Sweden, but I think that my salary is comparable to that of school teachers. In Sweden schools are the responsibility of local councils, and pay rates differ from area to area. I get this money for working 1750 hours/year. However, a) 240 hours are 'free' for personal skills development and administration; we work a system of 'factors', so that an hour spent in the classroom (which is only actually 45 minutes …) is equal to 3 or 4.5 of these 1750 hours, to take preparation and follow-up into account. 2. This is all - in Sweden all taxes, local and national, are deducted at source, so this net pay is arrived at after local and state taxes + national insurance contributions have been deducted. I don't pay anything else in the form of 'taxes', 'charges' or 'contributions' to the state, apart from consumption tax (VAT) specified in point 4. 3. We rent a flat and have to pay electricity charges over and above this rent, which includes the cost of central heating, though. If we were to buy a house or flat in the town I live in, we'd end up paying marginally less than this in total mortgage repayments, insurance, heating, etc. ------- Is anyone else prepared to take the plunge?

Martin Jacques, in today's Guardian, makes the point about the people's war much better than I can: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...1194671,00.html

Dalibor, perhaps I'm not expressing myself clearly enough. I was against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, despite any material benefits it may have brought - and there were some. I am against the Russian actions in Chechnya … and the British actions in the American colonies in the 1770s … and just about all the actions and policies of the British Colonial Office throughout the British Empire … and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba … and the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956 and 1968 … and the suppression of the anti-Communist revolt in East Germany in 1953 … have I given you a sufficiently varied list for you to see that for me it isn't a question of right or left - just right or wrong. And in my book an invasion of a foreign country in defiance of the international legal system it's taken us centuries to establish is always wrong. As for the question of how you get rid of a Saddam Hussein without recourse to an illegal invasion, of course there are lots of ways - it's just that the UK and the USA didn't try them out. By the way, I'm also convinced that there isn't one single set of policies which will work in every situation. If the EU immediately withdrew all of Israel's preferential trading policies and banned products exported illegally from the occupied territories, I'm fairly sure that that oppressor would be forced to the negotiating table. Such a policy wouldn't have worked against Saddam … because Iraq was not in the same situation as Israel is. Let's take Cuba as a case study. Castro was definitely popular in 1959 - who wouldn't be when the opposition was an American puppet, supported by the mafia? Whether the Cuban people really knew what they were getting is another question. Then comes the US trade embargo, whose main effect seems to have been to buttress Castro's regime in every possible way. But what about if the US had instead said: we don't agree with your policies, but we'll keep all our links open, and encourage US citizens to keep on visiting Cuba on holiday. In the 1970s, if Cubans could afford cars at all, their choice was one or other of the various Soviet models. Imagine if they'd been able to buy 1970s American cars to replace their 1950s American cars. How long would it have been before people had risen up against oppression? In other words, the Soviet system lasted a matter of months, once the Berlin wall fell. How long would Castro have lasted as the Cuban people saw the contrast between his regime and the alternative right in front of their eyes? The problem is how to handle the situation after the fall of the dictator. Our track record in the west has been truly awful. In the case of Cuba, the challenge will be to retain Cuba's health system, education system, medical research, etc, and to keep out the mafiosi of Florida. If Russia and Central America are anything to go by, the result of the West's actions against Cuba all these years will be to tip the Cuban people out of the frying pan and into the fire … a bit like we're doing to the opponents of Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq right now.

In substance, no. The Soviet Union was possibly marginally better at supporting women's rights, building roads, suppressing the drugs trade, etc. However, even if they had been stars at providing material improvements, it wouldn't have altered the fact that they invaded another country illegally and attempted to impose their will on it by force. I don't remember Gandhi's quote exactly, but he made the observation during the struggle against the British in India that even if the Indians made a mess of running the country, it would be *their* mess, which was better than a British success. That's the fundamental principle which Bush's clique of right-wingers haven't grasped. I don't tar all Americans with the same brush, by the way. Part of my day job is to teach US Culture and Society, and the mountain I have to climb with my students is to try to show them all the positive aspects of the US Constitution, and to point out that there are lots and lots of ordinary Americans who are just as appalled by the anti-democratic, colonialist policies of the present US government. However, Americans have the choice between keeping Bush or throwing him out - Iraqis don't, unless they rise up in revolt.

I've just read a very interesting article in today's Guardian by a counsellor at the Iranian Embassy in the UK. Here's the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...1191336,00.html Now, let's forget the Genetic Fallacy of automatically rejecting what the writer says just because he's from the Iranian Embassy. Here's the last paragraph of his article: "It is now one year since the start of war in Iraq and we have had more than two years of the war on terror. Unless three conditions at least are met, the future will remain bleak and hopeless. The people of the region have to be taken into account. They have to be listened to and not prescribed a pre-packaged recipe from afar. And governments that draw their legitimacy from the people need to be supported." I'm sure that the Americans would say that that's what they're trying to do - but why is it that so many people who live in the region itself feel that what they're actually doing is exactly the opposite?

Dalibor, you're absolutely right! Colonialism is colonialism, whether the flag that covers the face of the tyrant has the swastika, the stars and stripes, the cross of St George or red, white and blue stripes on it. It seems to me that your analysis is clear and sharp in every direction … except one. My comparison with Nazi Germany wasn't a slur - it was a question. If the US occupation of Iraq is different from the Nazi German occupation of France, in what respect is it different? The only difference I have read in your postings is in terms of the stated intentions of the occupiers (for the sake of argument, I'm prepared to overlook the takeover of the Iraqi economy by US interests, without so much as a by-your-leave). My point was simply that the Germans in France had plenty of high-sounding intentions too. They even expressed them in 'democratic' terms (the D in NSDAP stood for 'demokratisch', as I'm sure you know). Yet we judge them by their results, not their intentions. Surely, we should do the same with the Americans in Iraq? Georg Mikes wrote a book about the French (as he wrote one about the British - How to Be an Alien). It's called 'Little Cabbages'. He compares the American relationship with the French as that of a large, heavy man standing on your corns. He assures you of his good will and admiration for your culture - you are only conscious of his weight. Perhaps it's just because I'm a citizen of a colonial power (yes, the UK still has one or two colonies!) that I'm so allergic to people who have to destroy (Falluja) in order to save it.

Let me add some input from Sweden. The previous government here, which was run by the right, brought in 'private' schools, making it fairly easy to establish them, and giving them the same amount (or at first a slightly greater amount) of public money/pupil as council schools get in return for *not* giving them the power to charge fees. Education is run by local councils here, although there are all sorts of co-ordinations and inspections going on, together with a national curriculum. I suspect that the current government (of the left) would like to abolish 'private' schools again, but one of their coalition partners won't let them, and the Swedish Parliament has been finely balanced for as long as anyone can remember (I think that the last time one party held power on its own was in the 1960s). The effects are quite interesting. The right introduced 'private' schools in order to radically re-shape Swedish schooling. What's happened has been firstly the establishment of denominational schools - principally by evangelical Christians and Muslims - many of which have come under severe criticism from inspectors, mainly on two grounds: they fail to provide qualified teachers; and they fail to subscribe to the democratic values mentioned in the national curriculum. The second effect has been 'cherry-picking'. In the relatively few towns where there is a significant amount of 'private' schooling, there's an incipient revolt from middle-class parents, who see cherished local council schools having to cut back or close down altogether because someone's started a 'private' school in the same area (since it's only the Muslim 'private' schools which start up in the relatively less-well off areas). It's the same phenomenon which meant that the rural, Conservative areas of Britain were the first introducers of comprehensive schooling - there are only so many pupils in a given area and so much money. You can't spread your resources out thinly enough to allow for 'private' schooling without beggaring the entire system - both 'private' and state. My own position is that I'll believe in 'private' education the day the state removes the obligation to send children to school. Whilst the state compels children to go to school, I feel that it has an obligation to provide good quality schooling for them. As you can see, I don't feel that 'private' schooling has been much of a success in Sweden - they go bankrupt all the time!

I remember reading a lovely quote from the then Minister of Education in France at the time of the May 68 demonstrations. He was referring to the fact that French universities allowed everyone who wanted to start, and then weeded most of the out at the end of the first year with very tough examinations. He described the system as "organising a shipwreck in order to see who could swim". Perhaps Ofsted inspections and the SATs tests could be described like that?

I'm way out of the UK educational system - I still have a DES number, but it's more than 20 years since I taught in the UK. What strikes me as an outsider is the degree to which teachers in the UK seem to be frustrated by their own lack of influence over their professional situation. I see this stemming from the whole way the National Curriculum was established - and the only solution would be to enter 'cloud cuckoo land' and scrap, or so radically redesign that you might as well call it scrap, many of the aspects of the modern school system. The problem is that, believe it or not, spending money, devising examination systems, appointing governing bodies, etc is the *easy* part of improving schools! The hard bit is changing attitudes amongst teachers, pupils, politicians, parents, local newspaper editors … to name but a few. The problem then is that if your professionals are feeling so disillusioned and disempowered, you've lost the main body of people who have the power to act positively for change. The nature of the teaching profession is such that it all ultimately depends on the personal relationship between the people in the classroom - the kids, the administrators and the governors can all have an enormous influence, but unless you harness the creative powers of the teachers, you're very unlikely to achieve anything. But … perhaps I'm wrong. I feel that I'd certainly have been sacked around 1985 if I'd stayed in the UK, since I trained and was appointed at the time when teaching was more of a vocation than a job. Perhaps UK teachers who have grown up professionally with the present system can see benefits where I can't.