Education Diet -On The Road to Malnutrition?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) February 7, 2011 --

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Education Diet -On The Road to Malnutrition?

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http://www.periplus.org.uk

2010 will be remembered as the year when the world started to emerge from the recession. Politicians and economists at all levels are telling us that the credit crunch is a thing of the past and that we can look forward to a brighter future. Nevertheless, the crisis has left the country with a significant debt and those same politicians are looking for ways to cut public expenditure and tighten the budgets available. Despite a commitment to preserve expenditure, one of the areas that will see a sudden change after many years of steady budget growth, is education, with unions and headteachers fearing deep cuts will be necessary in staffing and even in the curriculum offered.

The recent focus by the education secretary on the so called “English Baccalaureate” with its emphasis only on the subjects of Maths, English, Science, languages and Humanities has further sharpened concerns that there will be a much narrower curriculum diet on offer in the coming years, even in fee paying schools, as all schools continue to concentrate on what is measured by league tables rather than what is perhaps important. It would seem parents may have to look elsewhere if they want to provide breadth.

Many parents are also concerned that narrowing the curriculum will not prepare children for 21st century life. Subject knowledge, they argue, will rarely be used by their children. What they require, in a world where they are bombarded by an overwhelming quantity of information are the skills to deal with knowledge and how to analyse this information across the whole spectrum of experience. How will our young people of today learn to handle the complexities of life tomorrow if, for example, they have never experienced the application of logic, the classical basis of language, the lessons from history, the origin of cultural diversity and an understanding of globalisation and much else?

Without the diversity of curriculum and experience, individuals and society will become sick, just like a body which does not get its full set of vitamins and minerals. Unbalanced education, just like unbalanced nutrition, especially in the early years, influences the development and growth of the organism, its ability to function normally and the quality of its future life and even its longevity. Parents always do their best to feed their children with the ‘right’ food and ensure they are exposed to plenty of fresh air and sunlight to ensure the best physical development, but, can the same be said of the education they receive? If the state is not able to support a full enough curriculum in the immediate future, then once again parents are going to need to look further afield to organisations such as Periplus Home Education, to provide appropriate ‘supplements’ for their learning diet if our children are to grow up with sufficient skills and ability to survive their future.

By John Edwards and Ignaty Dyakov

More information can be found online at http://www.periplus.org.uk

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