Children as products. Schools as warehouses

No unfortunately this is not some metaphor from the pen of a radical pedagogue. According to the BBC a secondary school in Doncaster is carrying out a 'pilot' which involves emdedding tracking chips into children's uniforms. When the child enters a classroom his or her details such as ranking in the National Curriculum is brought up automatically onto a computer.

This is a sad day that it has come to this. This is exactly the same technology which is used to track products as they are moved around in warehouses. What happened to human relationships? Can the teacher not ask the student some questions? Curiously the student is airbrushed out of the picture - really very little participation is required from them - so long as they walk past a scanner the teacher already knows all there is to know about their educational attaintment. All they have to do is sit the SATS tests and allow the database to be populated. Targets can be met; another child has been 'educated'. But in fact there has been no real contact, no human interaction; nothing real.

This is the technological depersonalisation which is in vogue in education carried to its logical conclusion.