Talking point: Controversial issues on education

This week's talking point deals with education and with some controversial topics around it. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the issues below, think of your ideas about them and work out any vocabulary issues you may have.

• Subsidised private education should disappear –the schools should be either state schools (paid for by the government) or private (paid for by the families).
• Boys and girls should study separately to achieve better academic results.
• A strict dress code should be imposed to stop students showing underwear or wearing provocative clothes.
• Uniforms are a necessary evil to ensure all the students are equal.
• Exams are a necessary evil.
• Physical education (PE) shouldn’t count as a subject and students shouldn’t be given marks.
• Textbooks should be kept to a minimum, as they are an expensive economic burden on families every school year. Tablets or laptops are a better option, as they are inexpensive in the long run and educational software can be downloaded on a regular basis. Families and the state should share the cost of this technology.
• Home-schooling doesn't prepare children well-enough to deal the demands of academic life at university and with the intricacies of today's society.
• Teachers and the government are mainly responsible for a child's education.
• "He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches." George Bernard Shaw

To gain further insight into the topic, discuss the ideas in the film Dead Poet's Society if some members of the group may have seen it.

What is the film about?
Which educational models are contrasted?
Have you had a Mr Keating among your teachers?