I didn’t need to listen to the Senior Advisor. I knew what he was going to say. My supervisor was grabbing for words, making interjections because he was a political appointment.

Political appointment is the polite way of saying unqualified idiot.

Eventually they’d turn to me; in fact they had. I think this was the second time my name was being called.  I perked up when the Meglomanic who ruled this country, uttered the usual remark;

“You are talking education, I am talking politics.”

“Your nation votes, doesn’t it?” I say as softly as I can.

His jaw moved in the kind of anger you’ll see from those who declare victory before the votes are counted. Correction, before the ballots are marked.

Aware he was not in the presence of do-gooders or other such offensive persons, he nodded.

“Begin with the dumbing down of the electorate. Start with the teachers. Make teaching a last resort occupation. Keep salaries low, drop standards. Entice the better teachers from classrooms into other fields of employment.”

I paused, wondering if he could process five sentences worth of information consecutively.

After ten seconds of silence, I continued.

“As the classrooms fill with the least intelligent and most incompetent teachers, dumb down the exams. Keep dumbing them until more than half of the students pass. Saying sixty percent passed a subject will satisfy the electorate. The fact that this year’s exam is far simpler than last year’s is not questioned.”

He seemed to grasp the point.

“Concurrent with this is to lower nutritional standards for children to produce permanent brain damage. You have heard of “Breast is Best” campaigns?  As you may guess a breast is attached to a woman. Where there is high poverty women will have to work. They will take the breast with them. Remove all subsidies from infant formulas, discourage alternatives. The infant will be fed with various bush teas, sugar and water, any available commodity which will not provide the necessary nutrition. The infant’s brain, starved, will never advance beyond a particular level of achievement.”

I let that wash around in his cranium for eleven seconds.

I actually counted them.

“Hence, the brain damaged child enters the substandard school to be taught by unqualified teachers and tested with modified exams.”

Again I paused, but only for six seconds.

“Every child is in school.  Pass rates remain at the 60% level.”