Education
School Ancient History
to be dropped in UK?
Since this article was published OCR have decided to discontinue their
changes.
The UK exam board 'OCR'
has announced plans to discontinue offering its distinct Ancient
History qualification - the only one available - instead it
intends to subsume the subject into a general qualification on
'Classical Civilisation'.
Although apparently an action informed by consultation with 'key
stakeholders' this change has provoked a petition to the government
signed by many such stakeholders.
Considering what appears to be a far from comprehensive treatment of
the subject in OCR's
draft specification
the protest is unsurprising.
It has often been claimed with reason that without a thorough knowledge
of ancient history we have only a superficial knowledge of our own
time.
This fact is being increasingly lost sight of - most especially amongst
the now shamefully ignorant 'educated' British - as education becomes
technical training to increase the G.D.P of countries already drowning
in a superfluity of material 'wealth' instead of a means to
create informed intelligent individuals capable of autonomous
judgement and participation in the governing of their societies.
If you would like to sign the online petition you can do so: here.
The 'Joint Association of Classical Teachers' website gives a
blow by blow account of their struggle against the decision: www.jact.org