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.
Will Orr-Ewing 