We Don’t Need No Education (Slight Return)

My oldest child is in the second year of high school.  The new Scottish qualifications that replace Standard grades and Intermediates are National 4 and National 5, and my local high school now wants its pupils to choose the subjects that they will take to this level over the next two academic years.  As well as the four core subjects of English, Maths, PE and Religious Education, six others are chosen; one from each of the following groups:

SOCIAL SUBJECTS Geography; History; Modern Studies SCIENCE Biology; Chemistry; Physics CREATIVE & AESTHETIC Art; Music; Drama; PE Studies; PE Dance TECHNOLOGY Computing; Administration & IT; Accounting; Business Management; Graphic Communication; Design & Manufacture; Woodworking Skills; Food Technology; Textile Technology ELECTIVE 1 Spanish; Biology; Physics; Drama; Art; Food Technology; Computing; History ELECTIVE 2 French; German; Chemistry; PE Studies; Music; Administration & IT; Graphic Communication; Religious, Moral & Philosophical Studies

When I was thirteen, I would have chosen the same subjects as my mates did so I could hang around with them, or avoided subjects where I hated the teachers.  A couple of years can make all the difference between making decisions out of some sort of realism rather than just wanting to look cool.  But the way the subjects are laid out shows two big problems that the school system dumps onto everyone else.

First, despite all the evidence that this country’s workforce can’t sell a single thing overseas unless it’s to another English-speaker, all foreign languages have been sidelined in such a way that they can be avoided altogether by someone just looking for easy subjects.

The other is the redundancy of some of the more “modern” subjects.  Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies sounds like a big deal but any decent teaching of History will cover the ethics behind conflicts and political events.  Accounting is only really useful to people who have already proved their worth at maths, which most fourteen-year olds have yet to do.

I wonder if the exercise is more to make schools and their pass statistics look good than provide the universities, colleges and the job market with qualifications that would be of any use.