« Leader/deputy: teams/unteams | Main | Why blog? »
August 17, 2004
Salmond/Sturgeon on the school curriculum
According to a press release dated 16 August 2004: "Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have today proposed changes to the school curriculum to include citizenship classes and the teaching of enterprise skills and Scottish economic history. They have pledged that if elected to be leader and deputy leader of the SNP, they will enter into discussions with teaching unions and parent groups, with a view to establishing a broad-based campaign for these reforms."
My comments:
Rather than citizenship classes (which sound exactly like the Blunkett/Crick flag-waving, anthem-singing classes for immigrants) a basic course on political institutions would help young people understand how to deal with local and national government and take part in democratic processes - not least by voting!
Rather than emphasize Scottish economic history, Scottish Studies as a whole should be taught in schools, including Scottish history (which is surely where economic, social and political history should be taught) also geology and prehistory, geography, and environmental studies. The broader the better, and whenever possible the studies should be linked to fieldwork.
Teaching 'enterprise skills' does sound like a good idea, but I am not sure how this would be accomplished in practice.
The major educational challenge that Scotland faces (as in all other countries) is to adapt education to the post-Information Revolution world - a world in in which paper and ink, books, passive, class-based studying and a lot of writing by hand are replaced by keyboards, online resources, individual interactive learning and multimedia output.
The SNP should be looking at educational projects in the States and other countries where children have been given their own laptop and handheld computers to develop creative projects.
Posted by Simon Holledge at August 17, 2004 02:01 PM