BILL CARMICHAEL: GOVERNMENT CANNOT JUST RELY ON SUCCESS OF VACCINE
No. 9,927
We must rebuild the content of our education system, starting with the wrong-headed emphasis on rote learning. Memorisation can be helpful but machines learn faster.
“LORD! WHAT sad sight it was by moonlight to see, the whole City almost on fire,” wrote the diarist Samuel Pepys in September 1666.
London, which had been growing organically since Roman times, was burning and by the time the last embers were out, the blaze had destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, the Royal Exchange, Guildhall and St Paul’s Cathedral.
London, one of Europe’s largest cities, lay devastated. Yet out of the ashes grew one of the world’s greatest cities.
Led by the architect Sir Christopher Wren, a risk-taking genius, London was rebuilt over the next 30 years and a new skyline emerged, dominated by the dome of the rebuilt St Paul’s.
A great column was constructed, the Monument, to commemorate the Pudding Lane disaster. The city grew in stature and two centuries later would be at the heart of a global empire.
As devastating as the destruction was, it allowed a new era to be ushered in. From catastrophe came creation.
I believe the coronavirus could be the contemporary equivalent for our education system, sweeping away the old order and giving innovators an unparalleled opportunity to rebuild the architecture of learning for the 21st century digital economy with equality of access hard-wired into the new infrastructure.
First we must rebuild the content, starting with the wrong-headed emphasis on rote learning.
Memorisation can be helpful but machines learn faster. We must refocus on creativity and the practical applications of data science, the skills that will help us solve the big challenges facing our planet.
These can be learned in ways that are fun and engaging, as our family foundation and other charities are demonstrating.
The world of work is changing and so must the education system. Growth sectors like machine learning and automation need programmers to write code and analysts to make sense of data.
These require logical reasoning, problem-solving abilities, an eye for detail and organisational skills.
My company WANdisco plc is developing new talent to help meet growing demand for our data software.
Students at the WANdisco Data Academy at The Sheffield College are acquiring the skills and experience to succeed in the future. The basics can be learned in months, rather than years. The rest is learning through experience.
Next we must rebuild the platform. In the digital world, it no longer matters where you are or where you come from, so long as you can get online.
Remote working has transformed productivity in the workplace. No more hellish daily commutes.
Remote learning has the same power and potential for the classroom. Let’s rebuild the school day around what we know works best for children to make the most of these precious formative years.
Before the pandemic, stress, anxiety and depression among children was becoming endemic. Who wants to return to that?
Like remote working, remote learning must have the right infrastructure. Nearly one in 10 households are without access to a laptop, desktop or tablet.
In effect, this is denying up to 1.8 million children their basic right to education.
Last year, we launched the Laptops for Kids campaign in response to this social problem.
With the support of socially-minded businesses, generous individuals and our partners in local government, we have met the initial need in South Yorkshire and are well on the way to solving the issue in the North East.
The problem is not just restricted to availability of devices. It also concerns connectivity.
We are launching a northern task force to expand the scope of Laptops for Kids to address challenges around access to learning and ensure education is fit for purpose.
The task force will develop and share policies to ensure every child has access to the technology and connectivity they need to fulfil their potential.
We are exploring ideas around the roles and responsibilities of network providers and large bandwidth users to free up data for educational purposes.
If every child has equal access to education online, we create more opportunities for young people to succeed, whoever they are and wherever they come from.
The best education is no longer the preserve of Eton and Oxford and the best employment is no longer confined to Silicon Valley or the City of London.
The old order is failing, despite the best attempts of many. Covid gives the innovators the chance to rebuild anew. From this catastrophe, let there be creation.
ACROSS
1. Complete confusion (5)
6. With the mouth wide open (5)
9. Domed building (7)
10. A coach (5)
11. Bishop’s headdress (5)
12. Finger or toe (5)
13. A country (7)
15. Farm animal (3)
17. Metallic element (4)
18. Envoy (6)
19. Football matches (5)
20. Number (6)
22. Young salmon (4)
24. Hill (3)
25. Late or too late (7)
26. Thighbone (5)
27. Bet (5)
28. Domineering (5)
29. Popular newspaper (7)
30. Insurgent (5)
31. Very thin, haggard (5)
DOWN
2. Extreme fear (6)
3. Primary source (6)
4. Male offspring (3)
5. __ Roberts, actress (5)
6. Respects highly (7)
7. Manner of walking (4)
8. Macaw, say (6)
12. Backless sofa (5)
13. Bathroom fitting (5)
14. Let down (5)
15. A jeweller’s weight (5)
16. Eerie (5)
18. Prise (5)
19. Common (7)
21. Find (6)
22. Indian or Buddhist temple (6)
23. Motive (6)
25. Hector (5)
26. Outdoor event (4)
28. Large (3)
COMMERCIAL PROPERTY investment in Yorkshire bucked the trend for Savills as revenues and profits for the whole group fell last year.
The property adviser and agent saw revenues for 2020 fall nine per cent to £1.74bn and underlying pre-tax profit fall a third to £96.6m. Savills’ transactional business was particularly hard hit, with underlying profits down 72 per cent to £19.4m.
In a statement, the group said that transactional activity would remain suppressed in the first half of 2021
However, Paul Fairhurst, head of Savills Leeds, described investment in the city as “particularly strong” last year and said the firm had been involved with major leasing deals throughout Yorkshire.
Savills advised on the acquisition of several offices in Leeds, including 15/16 Park Row, Vantage House and 3/4 The Embankment. It also advised on the sale of former Leeds City Council buildings on Great George Street.
Mr Fairhurst said: “We’re exceptionally proud of what our teams achieved in a year of continued uncertainty. Our investment team had a particularly strong year.”
He added: “Our teams have also been involved with major leasing deals throughout the region, including securing a 30,000 sq ft office pre-let in Calder Park. We look forward to continuing the ongoing success of Savills Leeds throughout 2021.”
The listed company, which operates in about 70 countries, said its UK residential arm grew revenues by 10 per cent in 2020 after the market recovered strongly when it reopened last summer.
Looking ahead, Mark Ridley, group chief executive, said: “We remain confident in the longterm attraction of real estate as an asset class and although macro-economic uncertainty resulting from Covid-19 clearly remains, we see enhanced investor demand for income and improvements in leasing activity.”
Our investment team had a particularly strong year. Paul Fairhurst, head of Savills Leeds
ENGINE-MAKER ROLLS-ROYCE has plummeted to a mammoth £4bn annual loss after taking a “severe” hit from the pandemic as the crisis hammered the global aviation industry.
The group’s loss for last year was worse than expected and compares with underlying pretax profits of £583m in 2019.
On a statutory basis, Rolls reported pre-tax losses of £2.9bn against losses of £891m in 2019.
Rolls said there had been a “severe impact of Covid-19 pandemic on group performance and nearterm outlook”, warning that prospects for 2021 are still uncertain for the firm and its sector. But the group stood by its forecast for cash outflow – a closely-watched measure for the group – to improve in 2021.
Its cash outflow stood at £4.2bn in 2020, but Rolls forecast this would improve this year to an outflow of around £2bn and is set to turn positive at some stage during the second half. The group said it had taken swift action to slash costs by an extra £1bn amid aims to save a total of £1.3bn by 2022, including 7,000 job losses in 2020.
A total of 9,000 job cuts are expected in total under the programme, with around two thirds going in the UK.
It has also raised £7.3bn to survive the pandemic through tapping up shareholders and borrowing from the Bank of England, with plans to raise at least £2bn from selling off some parts of the business.
Warren East, the CEO, said: “We have taken decisive actions to enhance our financial resilience and permanently improve our operational efficiency, resulting
in a regrettable, but unfortunately very necessary, reduction in the size of our workforce.
“With the support of our stakeholders we successfully secured additional liquidity with a rights issue, bond issuance and further credit facilities put in place during the year. We have made a good start on our programme of disposals and will continue with this in 2021.”
Laura Hoy, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Full-year results at Rolls-Royce were brutal. No amount of costsaving and restructuring was enough to offset massive declines in Civil Aerospace, the group’s largest division. Defence was the only bright light, but it makes up less than 30 per cent of overall
revenue so it’s 8 per cent uptick in profits was buried under heavy losses in all of the group’s other segments.
“The good news is Rolls expects its Power Systems division to start seeing green shoots in the
first quarter and ultimately recover to 2019 levels in 2022.
“The bad news is Civil Aerospace, which accounts for just under half of Rolls’ revenue, is likely to be bogged down by losses well into the future. Rolls makes money
by selling new engines and servicing those currently in use.
“The pandemic delivered a one-two punch to the division as the decline in airline travel means airlines don’t have the money to buy new planes, and being grounded also means servicing hours are slashed.
“Rolls needs engine hours to recover in order to stage a fullyfledged comeback. In management’s base-case scenario, that’s not happening anytime soon.
“Engine flying hours are expected to increase to only half of 2019 levels in 2021 and would reach 80 per cent of 2019 levels the following year. That’s enough to keep Rolls afloat, but it won’t offer much in the way of profit growth.”
Full-year results at Rolls-Royce were brutal. Laura Hoy, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown