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Teachers to run big businesses, Blair announces
27 Jan 2006
Teachers are to take charge of some of the country's biggest companies, the government announced today. Speaking at a second-hand car dealership in Bootle, Tony Blair said that requiring teachers to run businesses would be "good for productivity". "Most teachers have never experienced running a multinational company," he explained, "making them the perfect people to introduce a new ethos and value system into an organisation."
The new policy was described by a spokesman as a logical way to follow up the government's plan to encourage people who know nothing about education to run schools. A lobby journalist who suggested that, since the Department of Education knows nothing about running schools, it might be a better candidate to be taken over by teachers was ejected from the briefing and told not to come back.
Asked whether business studies teachers would have an unfair advantage in the scheme, Mr Blair replied that research had shown that they mostly had no more experience of running a business than any other teacher. "It will be a level playing field," he added. "But not an actual playing field, obviously. Let's not talk about playing fields."
Later in the day Mr Blair visited the new McDonald's Academy of Education and Fast Food Preparation (formerly Bootle High School), where he toured the new 326-seater restaurant and attached catering area (formerly Bootle High School's football pitch). "For any doubters out there, the evidence is here for all to see that private sponsorship can motivate pupils," he said after talking to Greg Mullet, a former straight-A student who had recently taken receipt of the first gold star on his name badge – an innovation introduced by the Academy's ability to vary the curriculum.
"Some day every school will have a drive-thru," he added wistfully, "but in the meantime I want teachers to do for business what business has done for schools."
The Prime Minister was unable to confirm exactly how many companies had put themselves forward for the scheme so far.
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