Spy Review

According to Daily Mail, one of Britain’s most widely circulated newspapers, some schools in the country are installing surveillance cameras in classrooms. The cameras will be in classrooms of pupils across the age range, from as young as 4.

The firm installing the cameras and microphones may have some sort of conflict of interest as their chairman, Tim Loughton, is the Shadow Children’s Minister (the opposition party). Although he isn’t in the government, MPs, particularly, senior MPs such as Mr. Loughton, can have significant influence, which may well be the case here. Since MPs are well paid these days and have their costs covered, perhaps they should not be allowed to sit on boards of companies while they serve their constituencies, it simply creates conflicts of interests.
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At a cost of £3,000 for each classroom, the question that must be asked is, at a time when the schools are constantly being criticised for churning out pupils that are rather ill-equipped for worklife, couldn’t this money be better spent on improving teaching standards.

Also, is this going too far in terms of privacy violation? Having cameras and audio surveillance everywhere can make pupils and even teachers uneasy knowing their every move is being recorded. How can this be conducive for good teaching and teacher/student relationship?

I suppose this might be a good idea for secondary schools since there have been a lot of cases of violent pupil on pupil attacks, but is this necessary for clasrooms of 4 year old kids. Much of the misbehaviour at that age is still quite innocent and there is nothing malicious in it.

Can you imagine the scene where a teacher of a 4 year old pupil calls his/her parents over and demonstrates video footage of their child disrupting class? I think if a teacher cannot discpline 4 year old kids, then they should perhaps not be in the teaching profession at all.