Top 189 Quotes & Sayings by Michael Gove

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British politician Michael Gove.
Last updated on November 25, 2024.
Michael Gove

Michael Andrew Gove is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Surrey Heath since 2005. A member of the Conservative Party, he has served in various Cabinet positions under Prime Ministers David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Gove has twice run to become Leader of the Conservative Party, in 2016 and 2019, finishing in third place on both occasions.

It is literally the case that learning languages makes you smarter. The neural networks in the brain strengthen as a result of language learning.
A coalition with Tories and Liberal Democrats together is a golden opportunity to create the sort of planning reform that means not only can we have more environmentally sensitive planning, but we can have more homes and more schools.
The current leadership of the Labor party react to the idea that working-class students might study the subjects they studied with the same horror that the Earl of Grantham showed when a chauffeur wanted to marry his daughter.
At the moment, I'm afraid that the discipline system doesn't give teachers the support that they need. One thing that I've been struck by is that the number of violent assaults on teachers increased last year. We need to be clear that teachers have the power they need in order to impose discipline.
Ever since going up to university, I have accumulated new debt, and new means of becoming indebted. — © Michael Gove
Ever since going up to university, I have accumulated new debt, and new means of becoming indebted.
The accumulation of cultural capital - the acquisition of knowledge - is the key to social mobility.
I think more and more respect has been accorded to teachers, and quite rightly so.
Were I ever alone in the dock, I would not want to be arraigned before our flawed tribunals, knowing my freedom could be forfeit as a result of political pressures. I would prefer a fair trial, under the shadow of the noose.
One of the problems we've had is that the ICT curriculum in the past has been written for a subject that is changing all the time. I think that what we should have is computer science in the future - and how it fits in to the curriculum is something we need to be talking to scientists, to experts in coding and to young people about.
I'm a decentralizer. I believe in trusting professionals.
One of the problems we have is children are not in school long enough in the day and during the year.
The majority people in this country are suffering because of our membership of the E.U.
When I talk to teachers they tell me the things they'd most like from any government are a reduction in bureaucracy, support to help ensure good discipline and a reformed Ofsted.
I want people to be the authors of their own life story.
The big shift in approach on education that we are taking - which is different from what happened before - is that we trust teachers and we trust heads. — © Michael Gove
The big shift in approach on education that we are taking - which is different from what happened before - is that we trust teachers and we trust heads.
I'm not asking the public to trust me; I'm asking the public to trust themselves.
My sister and I know our lives could have been different - radically, unthinkably, irretrievably different - if we had not been adopted. We might have found ourselves in homes without love, stability or kindness. We might have found ourselves in care for much longer, without the secure attachment that being cradled in a mother's arms brings.
Adopting means opening your home, and heart, to a life you've never known. But there is nothing as richly rewarding as being an adoptive parent.
The Government wants to give young people from every community the chance to learn about the heroism and sacrifice of our great-grandparents, which is why we are organising visits to the battlefields of the Western Front.
Labor, under their current leadership, want to be the Downtown Abbey party when it comes to educational opportunity. They think working class children should stick to the station in life they were born into - they should be happy to be recognized for being good with their hands and not presume to get above themselves.
I was a union member in my youth as well and I went on strike, and I don't think it solved anything. It only made the situation worse for everyone involved.
The next leader of this country needs to be someone who believes heart and soul that Britain should be outside the European Union.
I am on the side of the people.
The single most important thing in a child's performance is the quality of the teacher. Making sure a child spends the maximum amount of time with inspirational teachers is the most important thing.
It's critical that children spend time before they arrive in school in a warm, attractive and inclusive environment, where they can learn through play, master social skills and prepare for formal schooling.
I think the people in this country have had enough of experts with organisations from acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.
You know you don't see hospital consultants going on strike, and I don't believe that teachers and head teachers should. It's within their rights, it's a civil right, but I think it is wrong in terms of the reputation of the profession.
It is vital that teachers can be paid more without having to leave the classroom. This will be particularly important to schools in the most disadvantaged areas as it will empower them to attract and recruit the best teachers.
I am in favour of migration; I simply want to control the numbers.
The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war.
The free market is not a god; we have to do everything we can to make the market competitive.
You wouldn't tolerate an underperforming surgeon in an operating theatre, or a underperforming midwife at your child's birth. Why is it that we tolerate underperforming teachers in the classroom?
I love my parents in the way most children would: for having been there at every point in my youth and childhood, ready to pick me up when I fell and support me when I stumbled.
What we're doing now is we're saying that individual schools can spend the money on their own priorities, so that head teachers can decide what's truly important, because the big shift in approach on education that we're taking - which is different from what happened before - is that we trust teachers and we trust heads.
Teachers themselves know if there's a colleague who can't keep control or keep the interest of their class, it affects the whole school.
A lot of schools benefit from parents who are first- or second-generation immigrants, who expect the best for their children.
There is a slam-dunk case for extending foreign language teaching to children aged five. Just as some people have taken a perverse pride in not understanding mathematics, so we have taken a perverse pride in the fact that we do not speak foreign languages, and we just need to speak louder in English.
It's often the case that successful people invite criticism.
Proper history teaching is being crushed under the weight of play-based pedagogy which infantilises children, teachers and our culture.
In this fallen world, I suspect we will never achieve perfection. But that won't stop me trying. — © Michael Gove
In this fallen world, I suspect we will never achieve perfection. But that won't stop me trying.
I think the principal purpose of education is to allow each of us, when we become adults, to shape our own future.
I put my country and my principles first.
We have the opportunity not just to choose our job or profession, but also to choose the sort of life we want to live and the imprint we will leave on others.
As long as there are people in education making excuses for failure, cursing future generations with a culture of low expectations, denying children access to the best that has been thought and written, because Nemo and the Mister Men are more relevant, the battle needs to be joined.
Unfortunately, the real achievements of children on the ground became debased and devalued because Labor education secretaries sounded like Soviet commissars praising the tractor production figures when we know that those exams were not the rock-solid measures of achievement that children deserve.
I have a different starting premise from those 100 academics who are so heavily invested in the regime of low expectations and narrow horizons which they have created.
I'm clear that we do need to improve what's happening in our schools.
Children in dysfunctional homes at risk of abuse are kept in danger for too long because politically correct rules mean we won't challenge unfit parents.
Hanging may seem barbarous, but the greater barbarity lies in the slow abandonment of our common law traditions.
I won't criticise anyone else's statements, and the public will make up their own minds. And if the public think that any side or any individual has strayed too far away from what's expected of public representatives, then they'll make that judgement.
It's the invincible arrogance of Europe's elites that gets me. These are people who have seen the euro collapse. These are people who are presiding over a migration crisis on their borders, and yet do they ever acknowledge that they need to change? No. They say they need more integration, more of our money, more control over this country.
Many more schools can be outstanding. — © Michael Gove
Many more schools can be outstanding.
I think it's appropriate that we simplify, clarify and strengthen, so instead of this nebulousness, we have clarity and authority invested in teachers once more.
Children themselves know they are being cheated. Ultimately we owe it to our children. They are in school for 190 days a year. Every moment they spend learning is precious. If a year goes by and they are not being stretched and excited, that blights their life.
I think it's time that we said to people who are incapable of acknowledging that they've ever got anything wrong: 'I'm sorry, you've had your day.' Unelected, unaccountable elites, I'm afraid it's time to say, 'You're fired. We are going to take back control.'
Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children.
Our security and sovereignty stand together.
I know myself, from my own background, the E.U. depresses employment and destroys jobs. My father had a business destroyed by the common fisheries policy.
Well I've been crystal clear that we should not have schools which are set up by extremists whether they're Christian fundamentalists, Islamic fundamentalists or any other sort of outrageous and beyond the pale organization.
You come home to find your 17-year-old daughter engrossed in a book. Which would delight you more - if it were 'Twilight' or 'Middlemarch?'
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