I have been quiet for over a week feeling depressed about so many failings in this country. Yesterday, Andy Murray was defeated in the Wimbledon semi-finals by Andy Roddick and another year goes by without a British player winning here since old Fred Perry in 1934, 1935 and 1936. Andy Murray will win one day but which British player is going to give him a serious workout? Err.... nobody. All the other British players were eliminated from Wimbledon in Round One. Why is Britain so useless at tennis? Because here, unlike in many other countries, the participants are primarily selected from the right social classes. This is a far more important requirement than any inherent ability to play tennis.
But Andy Murray doesn't make me feel depressed. He has achieved much at a very young age and good luck to him. But tennis is not alone in being a national disgrace because we play by different rules to everybody else. Political correctness of one kind or another is all powerful.
It was revealed on Thursday by Professor Matthews of Cardiff University that he had become concerned about the lack of basic knowledge of British history among new students entering his department that he had decided to try to get some more quantitative knowledge. So, over a period of three years he set a simple test for first year students - 284 of them - by asking them to answer the following questions.
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1. Who was the general in charge of the British forces at the Battle of Waterloo?
2. Who was the reigning monarch when the Spanish Armada attacked Britain?
3. What was Isambard Kingdon Brunel's profession?
4. Name one British Prime Minister in the 19th century.
5. In which country was the Boer War of 1899 to 1902 fought?
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It must be counted as one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's greatest achievements that 150 years after his death 40% of elite students still knew that he had been an engineer. Professor Matthews's students were less secure in answering the other questions. On all the other questions at least 2/3rds of the students got the answers wrong and, worst of all, only 11.5% were able to name a single one of the twenty men who were British Prime Ministers in the 19th century.
This is not difficult stuff to expect of a supposedly educated 18 year old. This result is enough to make anyone feel depressed. Here is a bunch of students considered good enough to enter a university and yet they have such a limited knowledge of pretty basic English history. Does it matter? Yes, I think it does. I have no doubt they would all have done far better if they had been questioned about our celebrity culture; a culture that assumes that the whole world should indulge in an orgy of collective grief and mourning on the death of a weird and possibly deranged pop singer.
Our education system is failing. The government comes out with new spin and presentation and massages exam results so that everyone passes, no matter how ignorant the children are in so many areas. But the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition think it necessary that they should comment on the death of Michael Jackson as well as the out come of celebrity TV shows.
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Last week David Davis, Tory MP, wrote about how his life was transformed by his going to a grammar school and why we should extend the grammar school system to again provide the opportunities for working class children to win a top quality education. The present leader of the Tory Party is an Old Etonian. The last Old Etonian to lead the Tory Party was Sir Alec Douglas-Home. All those in between from 1964 to 2005 were educated in grammar schools. But it is highly politically incorrect to suggest that we increase the number of grammar schools - so we put government back into the hands of the private schools and carry on fiddling with the education of the masses. Seems reasonable.
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