What the Government Should Focus On if Education is to Improve

The top area the government should focus on is to attract 'good' people into teaching AND to prevent the 'good' teachers from leaving the profession (which they are doing in large numbers, particularly in STEM subjects).  The government has tried in vain (by offering cash incentives) to address the first part but their attempts clearly illustrate they are clueless.  If they keep employing this same strategy they should realise they will get the same outcome: more teachers leaving the profession. 

Until the government removes all the unnecessary time wasting activities that teachers have to do and upon which they are judged, and give back the autonomy they had in the 70s, there will be no improvement.  Check out my article 'Why are Teachers made to use their valuable time so inefficiently?' at http://goo.gl/HRFmG4. 

Both the security and wealth of a country depends on educating the youth to be independent learners and the state system, with its focus on league tables and statistics and run by those who could not survive a month carrying out their own proposals, is clearly failing in that.  Hence the reason private tuition is the fastest growing industry in the UK.