In a recent BBC Point of View broadcast, intellectual heavyweight Roger Scruton gave a fascinating history of education since the nineteenth century. It is well worth a read.
Having just written a mini-essay on the curriculum, I was especially struck by this thought:
The state inherited well-funded, long established and dedicated institutions and a tried and tested curriculum that large numbers of people knew how to teach.
Hear hear! He also shares my feelings about the importance of knowledge, encapsulated in this tidy phrase:
Education, we must remind ourselves, is not about social engineering, however laudable that goal might be. It is about passing knowledge from those who have it to those who need it.
