Oh, the Humanities

An independent review of primary education has found that four decades of "reform" are beginning to show favourable results, at least from a New New Labour point of view. Although as few children as ever can read, write or count, and although the Daily Mail and its fellow uglies have not been entirely placated, pupils are leaving school with less and less knowledge of the arts and humanities, so they are unlikely in later life to suffer overmuch from the cultural poverty which will follow from the present generation's ethical and intellectual poverty. Instead, children are spending nearly half the school week proving the success and/or failure of several generations of Back to Basics, absorbing multiplication tables in preparation for the great and glorious day when the world will once more be in need of stockbrokers. Inconvenient, complicated and unnecessary subjects which may lead to moral confusion and hatred of British values - art, music, drama, history, geography - are being efficientised out of the system. Nevertheless, the review rather naïvely suggests that "a curriculum that values knowledge and understanding as well as basic skills should be brought in", and that the compulsory act of religious indoctrination should be reviewed. Clearly these people have no idea what education, education, education is all about.