From out to in

I'm back.

Last week I saw an ad placed in the window of my local municipal library advertising adult language courses to take place in said establishment.

And although Cicero is generally known throughout Western Christendom even to this day as a man of learning and letters, I still thought ‘I will have some of that’. Especially since these days sadly few can converse in my lingua franca, a massive loss to civilisation I might add.

I was however gobsmacked, dumbfounded and incredulous when reading further that the Local Council Apparatchiks who arrange such learning do not consider the poor sods who work hard to earn the taxes to pay their bloated salaries and their obese dripping pensions worthy of this learning. Clearly we have learnt enough.

For these courses are only available through the day when only the work shy, the feckless and the aged are available. And exactly when the hard pressed taxpayer, or at least most of them, are not.

This is discriminatory and exclusionist. And as you know Cicero is an ardent believer in the inclusiveness of education.

This was a stone that Cicero was not going to leave unturned. Though I bet that the hapless Apparatchik who develops this programme now wishes Cicero had moved on.

On investigating further and through didactic debate with said Apparatchik it transpires that the 2 Caesars, supported by their Apparatchiks and egged on by Townbee and her Guardianista acolytes, have decreed that the workshy and the feckless must be prioritised when it comes to education to help them back into work. Seems reasonable.

But does anyone seriously think that learning Spanish or Italian is going to make a serious dent in the unemployment numbers, especially when Spaniards and Italians already speak in many cases far better English than some of these people do. Mandarin might help but are these people capable of learning such a tricky language?

I was also gobsmacked to learn that less than 10% of people attending these classes are paying full whack i.e. in a job. And that the Full Whackers are subsidising this service to the tune of £750,000 a year.

And although I have no ideological objection to the State, i.e. the taxpayer, funding education, it must be on the basis of opportunity for all. We seem to be swinging away from opportunity for the rich and privileged (equally wrong) to opportunity for the lazy, the workshy and the feckless. 

The solution is obvious. Well obvious to all those who work in the real economy, the ones who know what making a profit is, those who get the need to understand and meet the customer needs. In other words everyone who is not a State-, i.e. taxpayer-, funded Apparatchik.

Run the classes in the evening.

I know such an approach might interfere with the opportunity for the lazy and the feckless to watch Coronation St, East Enders and Emmerdale. (As an aside when did Emmerdale stop being a farm?) But those who do want to develop their language skills for their next visit to the Costas will still come along. As will the Full Whackers. And getting them along and involved is key but we will never do this if the courses are only on during the day.

No one gets excluded. More Full Whackers come along reducing the cost to the taxpayer. And the lazy and the feckless and the aged might even benefit from rubbing shoulders with those who subsidise their lifestyle. Everyone’s a winner.

Did this have appeal to the Apparatchik? What do you think?

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.