In the UK the ‘A’ level results have been announced, heralding a new debate on whether education is dumbing-down or not. Some 97% have passed this year, with 1 in 8 getting A grades.
Of course, the experts say no dumbing-down is involved, but you could say they would say this. To argue it IS occurring would be for them to admit that the system they oversee is in decline.
If they all pass, it’s stupid
We can add to the problem by stating that, if the number of pass rates is increasing, then even if dumbing-down is not occurring, the only answer is students are getting brighter. And if this is so, then the nature of the exam should get harder.
By not making it harder, the result is that education is increasingly becoming a vehicle of mediocrisy rather than excellence. And the inevitable result of this is that future graduates will only have a blanket degree of competence, with no ‘stars’ to add vibrancy to any system or institution.
Mechanisation of society
It could be that this is what modern culture is aiming for. Let me put it this way: once, schools provided a rounded education, but now it looks increasingly like ‘education’ is only what is needed to keep society and business going.
Hence, rather than having a vibrant cultural expression, education is being geared to provide nothing but passive ‘cogs’ to keep the machine operating. And the final outcome will be a ‘machine-like’ society where no innovation is done, and no has the sense to realize it is wrong.
The Terminator, it seems, was incorrect. It is not machines that will take over us, but us who will end up apeing the machine.
© Anthony North, August 2007
Have you clicked Diary of a Writer on Blogroll? Meet me, up close and personal.
Click Tony On, on Blogroll, for my current affairs blog.
If you like fiction, click Fiction Page on Blogroll for my short stories.
Check out the pages. Find my Links on Eye On the World.
BEYOND THE BLOG 