One more murder in Manchester: is it worth comment? Yes, because Manchester could stand in for any great city. The circumstances are detailed in the Manchester Evening News. [1] This report is more lurid because for once it was possible to name the perpetrators. The old debate about causes will now follow its weary course through inequality, hormones and high spirits, gangster chic, music, deprivation and even too much lead.
We think the cause lies elsewhere: a failure of education. A working education system lifts up, inspiring from the local to the general, from despair to possibility. Without it, attention focusses on the petty, the parochial -the narcissism of small differences if you like. And among the uneducated such preoccupations prove fatal the world over.
It is in this light that we read the thoughts of Simon Jenkins of The Guardian.[2] He describes a dreary system of exam factories and narrow curricula that could have been purpose-built to alienate huge numbers of young people. We need exams. But a neurotic focus on them teaches nothing of life skills, emotional intelligence and flexibility , the core qualities of a thriving workforce. And kids know that. And reject accordingly. And are lost, as these ones were.
[2] Wasteful, costly and cruel: it’s time to bin GCSEs for good | Simon Jenkins | The Guardian
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Learning, Science and Society 