-Caveat Lector-
(I was educated at a Grammar school- after us came the dumbing down of the
brits(and the reinstitution of strong class differences in educational
opportunity)
John
Poll finds young Brits 'dumber' than oldsters
By JOHN EZARD
The Guardian
LONDON -- Young 18- to 24-year-old British adults are measurably "dumber"
than older age groups, according to a special survey for the Guardian
newspaper.
British youth emerge consistently as knowing less - sometimes far less -
than older people about many of the main events and personalities of British
history and culture. Fewer than a third of them can name Winston Churchill,
Britain's war-time hero, as a prime minister who served before 1945.
Last night, after studying the survey results, the country's culture
secretary, Chris Smith, said: "I fear it may represent a slipping of
knowledge. They do clearly know about other things such as Internet search
engines and rock music. But the fundamentals of what I would call cultural
literacy are sadly missing for too many of them. I hope the trend can be
reversed."
The schools minister, Jacqui Smith, said: "There are worrying gaps in the
education of too many young adults."
Only 6 percent of young adult Brits can name David Lloyd George, architect
of the welfare state, and only 8 percent Neville Chamberlain, architect of
the Munich agreement with Hitler.
Ninety-three percent do not know William Caxton was the father of printing
and that John Milton wrote "Paradise Lost." Ninety percent cannot identify
1815 as the year of the battle of Waterloo. Some 84 percent and 77 percent,
respectively, do not know what the Domesday Book or the Magna Carta were.
Many results appear to point to a progressive breakdown in the transmission
of historical and cultural facts between the six generations questioned for
the survey. This breakdown - over a period when educational qualifications
have greatly improved on paper -was acute if the events were more than half
a century old.
The age group that emerged as most knowledgeable was 45- to 54-year-olds,
who began their schooling under the post-1945 grammar school/secondary
modern school system and finished it as comprehensive schooling was starting
to become widespread. This group came top answering 19 of the 40 questions.
People over 65, whose education began when rote learning was more common,
scored well on some answers but came top on only six. Young adults were top
on five questions - all about pop culture or the Internet.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service. For more Guardian news go to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/)
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