Mark Wadsworth performed one of his trademark amusing skits last week, very well-constructed it was too.I couldn't help but be reminded, however, that the referred article at the Standard seems to have destroyed the prime justification for fingerprint technology in schools.
A girl of six was given bread and jam instead of a hot school dinner because her mother was £4 in arrears.Now, presumably, other kids would have seen this and - as is the case being presented - have been laughing at how her parents couldn't afford to provide her with funds necessary for her lunch.
Hazel Lebby, 37, says she was shocked to discover her daughter Hannah had been denied a lunch after she fell behind with her payments to St Thomas of Canterbury RC Primary in Commonside East, Mitcham.
We're told that bullying is the result of such inability to pay, hence one of the most quoted reasons for using biometrics.
Most commonly, in schools where children still pay with cash for their dinners, pupils eligible for free meals are given tickets.If the response by schools to someone who has been a bit late with payments is their child being visibly singled out - highlighting what might be taken as poor parental finances - doesn't that completely obliterate the stigmatisation argument?
The AM believes this makes it easy for such children to be identified and put at risk of bullying.
She recommends rolling out a system by which children have accounts to pay for school dinners which can be topped up either by their parents or by the local authority if they qualify for school meals.
All pupils would then pay for their meals by a biometric reading of their fingerprint at the till without anyone knowing how their account was funded.
I think we're being lied to again.
