Jolly old Michael Gove has apparently dreamt up a new wheeze. He's going to make primary schools put a glossy new focus on spelling and grammar.
WHAT ? When did our primary schools stop paying proper attention to these core issues ? I know that when I was at school, in the prehostoric past, spelling and grammar were central to our education. Consequently, my language skills tend to be rather better than those of the youngsters I occasionally meet.
Gove's 'imitiative' is yet another frightening indicator of the extent to which our children's education has been 'dumbed down' by successive governments. Younger people in our society cannot spell, they cannot write or speak in coherent sentences; they cannot do simple arithmetic and mental arithmetic is generally well beyond their capabilities. However, they do know all there is to know about the world war two holocaust and the evils of slavery; they know about their rights, without having any thoughts about their responsibilities, and they know all about contraception and venereal diseases without knowing anything about morality or ethics. They're taught 'health and child care' rather than biology, and the traditional sciences of chemistry, physics and biology seem to be lumped together as 'triple science' rather than being given the individual emphases they deserve.
Governments have fiddled with our education system for decades and every change has made it worse. Gove's proposal could be the first step in a recovery process, though I won't be holding my breath.
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