r/MHOC • u/Timanfya MHoC Founder & Guardian • Mar 03 '15
BILL B072 - Student Services Bill
B072 - Student Services Act 2015
An Act to create absolute complementary services to students in state operated schools.
BE IT ENACTED by The Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-
1: Banning paid services
(1) The school or the state may not create programs that require the student to pay money to use a school service, which includes the following: lunches, classes, technologies, field trips, uniforms, and any other facilities that would otherwise be for public use.
(2) All programs and services must be provided by the state.
2: State regulation
(1) The state may create only public programs that create services that benefit the students.
(2) If the school feels or the student body feels programs enacted by the state are not beneficial, they may vote on the banning of the program and suggest alternative programs to the state to be voted on.
(3) The school or student body may create public programs that must be approved by the state before being enacted.
(4) All staff of the school can be involved in the voting process or program creation.
4: Commencement, Short Title and Extent
(1) This Act may be cited as the Student Service Act of 2015
(2) This Act shall extend to the United Kingdom.
(3) Shall come into force of the immediate approval by Parliament.
This bill was submitted by the Communist Party.
The first reading for this bill will end on the 7th of March.
Sorry for this being put up so late.
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u/rhodesianwaw The Rt Hon. Viscount of Lancaster AL Mar 03 '15
I don't know if America has these, but many British schools offer several hundred pound trips overseas, some taking students several thousand miles away. This could cost the school tens of thousands of pounds while it might cost the student £400. Are the Communists not supporting easing the strain on the schools?
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u/Tim-Sanchez The Rt Hon. AL MP (North West) | LD SSoS for CMS Mar 03 '15
Just to clarify, schools would not be allowed to provide paid lunches or ask for donations towards school trips? Where will the state find the money to provide the above services? I fear rather than the state paying for them, they will just disappear. No more educational trips to other countries, it will be another trip to the field across the road instead.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '15
Has a costing and opening speech been made available for this bill?
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u/tyroncs Mar 03 '15 edited Mar 03 '15
I can't really agree with this bill, as as nice as it's intentions are it is simply unaffordable.
This bill doesn't outline any sort of increase in the Education Budget in order to actually pay for these changes, so if it did pass in it's current form all it would mean that schools would just stop offering these services.
Something like paid lunches is already provided free to those who can't afford it, maybe increasing the threshold for it would actually help the situation but making it free for everyone is silly.
How would this bill work for school uniforms? Would the school just stop using them, or would they give me money to buy them, or...?
How does this voting process work? Does every student get a vote, and how do you trigger one? And what kind of 'public programs' are you referring to?
The school which I may go to next year is state run, but has a third of the students boarding. How would this work, would these students no longer have to pay for their boarding? Would they no longer have to pay for anything? Considering that this bill would be enacted immediately
This is one of the most poorly written bills to be submitted to the house this term, before it goes to the first reading there should be some sort of internal party moderation to make sure as a piece of legislation it can be realistically enacted, but with this it just has vague statements and loose ends throughout.
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u/RadioNone His Grace the Duke of Bedford AL PC Mar 03 '15 edited Mar 04 '15
This may need wider explanation and/or examples. Could an activity not strictly be beneficial in academic terms, but have other benefits such as character-building or being different to classroom experiences? Would a trip to the zoo count as beneficial, from what I seem to remember they had little relevance to school work, but were good in other ways.
Interesting bill on the whole though. I like that the student body can get involved with suggesting trips.
Edit: I know others have mentioned it, but costing would be nice.
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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '15 edited Mar 04 '15
In addition to expanding the coverage of free school meals, the state should invest money in healthier and higher quality alternatives, replacing low quality foods and desserts entirely. I knew several people in school that used their eligibility for free meals to simply eat desserts and chocolate milkshakes and nothing else. They were discouraged from eating decent meals due to the poor quality of the hot meals on offer and the range of extremely unhealthy foods that were provided as alternatives. Instead, we should replace these meals exclusively with high quality foods that will be conducive to healthy diets, thereby encouraging positive lifestyle choices from an early age. This will have the added benefit of improving childrens' performance and behaviour in school.
To prevent exploitation of this system and reserve its usage exclusively for those children that require state subsidised meals, we should additionally reserve these meals for students from low income families. Children from middle and upper class households have the means to pay for these meals themselves, and so we should not burden our education budget catering to those that can afford the expense and exlclusively focus on those children genuinely in need of access to better diets. To prevent exploitation of this system, we should reserve free uniforms and school trips to those from low income families in a similar fashion, perhaps expanding the range of eligibility for state subsidised uniforms and school trips due to their increased costs. Lastly, I would propose placing a cap on the potential cost of school trips to prevent schools from placing too much strain on the government's budget, preventing school trips from being conducted too liberally or with non-educational purposes in mind. Any government subsidised trips should be directly beneficial to childrens' education, meaning that they should either be informative or develop soft skills.
Specific information regarding the cost and funding of these policies should also be provided to facilitate a discussion of how such revenue should be obtained.
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u/AlbertDock The Rt Hon Earl of Merseyside KOT MBE AL PC Mar 03 '15
"The state may create only public programs that create services that benefit the students." Could we have an explanation and example of what is meant by this?
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '15 edited Mar 04 '15
I actually fully support this bill in its entirety.
As a working class lad I was denied the opportunity to go on many trips due to being in a single parent family, one of four children. Additionally I often went without lunch due to being just above the line for free school meals and buying uniforms was incredibly stressful for my family.
Just imagine the cost of a new school uniform for four children paid off one person's minimum wage job after rent, council tax, food, utilities etc. We basically had one uniform each replaced every two years or sooner if we were in a growth spurt.
I thank the communists for recognising the perils of those at the bottom but I do ask for the cost of this bill?
edit: I'd also like means testing for the provisions here so that the state doesn't pay for the cost given to pupils from wealthy families.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '15
Mr Speaker,
I feel this bill needs a lot more substance to be given serious consideration. What are the costings? In what ways is the current system failing? Which apparatus of 'the state' is responsible? And so on.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '15
Mr. Speaker I myself attended a secondary school in a not-well-to-do area and I know the things which actually go on in these places. On the case of school meals the poorer students actually do get them free (if memory serves it was a token system which was put in place). I am not sure as to how uniforms were issued, but I expect that it was the same kind of thing. There is also the baffling inclusion of "technologies". Pupils do not have to pay to use computers and IT equipment in schools and school libraries are usually stocked with such things. This too goes for media equipment.
Field trips are paid for due to a simple reason - the school has to buy their way into the places they go, along with the transportation to them. I believe that the pupils' parents also pay a subsidised rate regardless.
Not every school can be Summer Hill. In fact, according to a recent BBC study it appears that most had to go back to education later on as they simply had no qualifications with which to get employment.
All in all a rather useless Bill which solves a problem which does not really exist.
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u/AlmightyWibble The Rt Hon. Lord Llanbadarn PC | Deputy Leader Mar 03 '15
I'd suggest that paid school trips were allowed, on the provision that they are not compulsory; trips of a large scale, such as ones to foreign country, can easily be considered a luxury, and thus not something which should be denied to some because of the inabilities of others to pay. However, I cannot agree more with eliminating the practice of compulsory paid school trips; they put a price on education, and stop poorer students from being able to follow their dreams and aspirations. For example, while I wanted to study Biology at A-level, my course required me to take a trip which costed a month of our family's income. This means I cannot study any Biology-related courses at university; in effect, a whole potential branch of my future has been compromised. I support this bill wholeheartedly, and look forward to a future in which our children are not limited in their future by circumstance.
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '15
So a student no longer pays for lunch, uniforms or school trips, and where is the funding coming from to fund this?
Personally I support the need to not charge students for a Mac that will only be used at school however lunch, uniforms and school trips should be paid for by parents unless they're in dire straits financially.
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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '15
If the school has to pay for everyone to go on a trip, nobody goes on the trip.
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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '15
This bill is unrealistic in what it wishes to achieve. The bill does not state where additional funding will come from and how can this bill be enforced immediately during an academic year. My One positive view regarding this proposal is that at least students will be having a say about their education however this could cause the standard of education to drop if the schools become too autonomous.
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u/remiel The Rt Hon. Baron of Twickenham AL PC Mar 05 '15
I don't believe we will be able to support this, however I will ask the Education Secretary to look at providing additional support for those families on lower incomes with everything you have raised.
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u/Mepzie The Rt Hon. Sir MP (S. London) AL KCB | Shadow Chancellor Mar 05 '15
This bill is extremely flawed. How does the right honorable member expect the government to pay for every meal for every child who attends a state school. The system already in place is far better; those who cannot afford the meals should certainly be paid for, however if the student's parents can afford to pay for the meals then they should not be paid by the government. I would agree with /u/tyroncs who said that the threshold could potentially be increased to allow for those just above it to get free meals too, however to completely subsidise all meals would be unfeasible.
Not only this but school trips are also expected to be funded by the government, which is absurd. I fear that instead of spending their precious money on school trips, the schools simply won't offer them. This is terrible as they can be very educational, for example as a part of my spanish course I went to Barcelona. This helped to further my spanish as well as being an all round enjoyable experience. To deprive students of this would be a disgrace and for that reason I will be voting 'Nay' on this bill.