Wednesday, December 23, 2009

UK Dumbing Down?

UK is on the verge of a major education disaster if Lord Mandelson had his way in demanding that UK universities cut their 3 years undergraduate degree requirement to 2.

Lord Mandelson himself had the benefit of a 3 years education at Oxford. Apparently he was not much of a student spending too much time networking and drinking. That may have influenced his view on how useless a 3 years education was to him. The report is here.

It is also most unusual for a Jew to pooh pooh education which is something closest to being sacred just as the Chinese believe as well: more the better.

The issue this pathetic Lord Mandelson has missed is not about the length rather the content. He himself read the Mods, or PPE, that stand for Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

Mods modernizes the original "core" curriculum at Oxford known as the "Greats".

Greats refer to Greek and Roman Classics read in either Latin or Greek. Armed with the study of the Greco Roman philosophy, politics, literature and history, the graduates went on to help run the British Empire. That elite corps shared the same intellectual, philosophical and ethical foundation of being a Platonic Guardian (please reread your Plato's Republic) with certain moral and behavioral standards the Guardians needed to live up to.

Lord Mandelson wants to destroy all that to save a few hundred million sterling. Far more of that had bee pissed away by negligent and stupid bankers. Why is education, the basis of all human progress, is always the first to be axed by small minded politicians?

Oxford should recall the degree they had granted this Lord Peter Mendelson, former Labor MP and Cabinet member under Tony Blair. He has become the proverbial Barbarian at the Ivy Gate.

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