Foolish academic elitism

There is more than an echo of that arch patrician, Lady Ludlow, in the scathing criticism being directed against the internet and its unlimited diet of free information. She it was, in the BBC's delectable serialisation of Mrs Gaskell's Cranford, who dismissed the notion that the lower classes should be given access to education. Teaching them to read, she said, would simply distract them from saying their prayers and serving the landed gentry.

Today it is the University of Google that stands accused of purveying the new socialism by offering equality of information to everyone. Modern students, say the critics, are being handed unlimited supplies of dubious facts from online sources such as Wikipedia, without the means of distinguishing between the good and the bad. Because they no longer have to sift through books and carry out their own research, the students' sense of curiosity has been blunted. The internet provides "white bread for the mind" and it is breeding a generation of dullards.

Let them read books, commands the impressively named Professor Tara Brabazon, of the University of Brighton where she is Professor of Media Studies. She says that she has banned her own students from using Wikipedia or Google as research sources, and insists they read printed texts only. In a lecture, she argues that only thus will we produce the critical thinkers that the nation needs.

I fear the professor is blaming the messenger rather than the message. It is not the uneven quality of facts found on the internet that is to blame for uninquiring minds, it is the way they have been taught to think - and the way their written work is marked.

I doubt if there is any difference between the undergraduates of my generation, who crammed for exams by creaming off selected quotes from recommended texts and then learning them by rote, and those of today who download convenient passages from Wikipedia. The difference lies in the use they make of the material. If they are encouraged to believe that predigested information is an end in itself, and if they are then given high marks for the result, they will simply conclude that that is the outcome that society requires of them.

If, on the other hand, they learn that they have a gateway to knowledge unprecedented in the history of man, and that this opens up access to sources of information that they might never have glimpsed as they struggled with poorly equipped libraries unhelpful staff and unimaginative lecturers, then they will realise that, far from blunting curiosity, it sharpens it.

Academics like Professor Brabazon reveal a Ludlow-like snobbery towards Wikipedia that is becoming ever harder to justify as the site itself improves. A year ago, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was outraged when the magazine Nature carried out a comparison between it and Wikipedia, and concluded that the service offered by the two were more or less on a par (Britannica had 2.9 minor errors per article, Wikipedia had 3.9).

The difference today is likely to be even less, because Wikipedia can correct itself so swiftly. That it is open to outside contributors of uncertain quality is part of its nature. But precisely because of this, there are thousands of eagle eyes ready to pounce on errors of fact or interpretation. Vandal editing - the deliberate distortion of facts by people known in the trade as "sockpuppets" - is now routinely detected, and particularly vulnerable pages are protected from interference.

Of course, there is always the risk of inaccurate information. But is any dictionary, encyclopaedia or historical work immune from it? Should I trust Macaulay's error-littered, Whig-biased History of England simply because it is bound in leather and will take a trip to the library to find? Is the New Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to be relied on because it has 60 volumes and a worldwide reputation, or should I listen to the detractors who have found errors in its entries for Jane Austen, Florence Nightingale and George V? And is the Britannica quite as magisterial as its title suggests?

I did a quick test on my own, looking up Nancy Mitford (I'm a fan) and judging the results on time and accuracy. Wikipedia gave me four pages of almost 100 per cent accurate information (I rang her niece, Emma Tennant, who spotted one small error), together with 33 links to related characters and a 16-line bibliography suggesting further reading. I got the whole lot in ten seconds.

The Britannica required a 20-minute trip to my nearest library. It gave me 350 words and a bibliography with one entry (Harold Acton's memoir). The online version offered the chance of signing up to a 30-day free trial, but still required my credit card details, replete with reassurances about taking my privacy "very seriously" - always a worrying sign. The DNB provided by far the best and fullest entry (but so it should). However, a month's subscription costs 29.35 pounds, and a year will set you back 195 pounds plus VAT. [sales tax]

What Professor Brabazon and cohorts of internet critics appear to be advocating is that those who require reliable information - the academic term is "peer-reviewed" - should be made either to work for it, or to pay for it. Curiosity, it seems, can only be stimulated by trawling library shelves or by shelling out substantial amounts of money.

The rest of us must fall back on the poor man's legacy, the internet, where we will encounter trivia, inaccuracy and lazy opinions lazily received. It's a useful caricature, of course, for those whose business it is to maintain a two-tiered society. But it suggests that not much has changed since the Church railed against men like Wycliffe and Tyndale who had the temerity to translate the Bible from Latin into English and thus allow it to be read by the great unwashed.

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British mathematics education dumbed down

An advanced form of the maths A-level should be introduced to attract the prodigies who are not stretched by the current qualifications, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said yesterday. Some 60% of teachers they questioned for their latest report on A-level maths said the qualifications had got easier since reforms in 2004. Teachers said pupils were increasingly re-taking units to improve their marks and that there was a wide perception that some options were easier than others. The report says: "Most teachers also felt that the two optional units do not provide sufficient 'stretch' for the most able students."

It concludes that the options for the QCA were to accept that only a small clever core of students should do maths, or that the A-level should be separated from the further maths A-level which should stretch the most able. A spokesman said they would be investigating how to improve the further A-level. The current A-level was introduced in 2004 in response to a crisis in recruitment after earlier reforms in 2000 prompted a decline. Since 2004 the number of candidates has increased by around 14%.

Ken Boston, chief executive of the QCA, said that maths A-level was among the most challenging to design because of the range of ability among pupils. "There is a far greater range of achievement in mathematics (and the related discipline of physics) among young people than any in other subject in the curriculum, except perhaps music. While there are some 14 year olds still struggling with basic arithmetic, there are some young people who are pushing at the frontiers of advanced mathematics, and destined for brilliant careers. And in the broad span between the two, there is an extraordinary range of differentiated performance. Mathematics is a nationally important priority."

The schools minister Jim Knight said the new A-levels being piloted would better reflect academic excellent through the new A* grade. "Let's be clear. A-level maths is not easy. It is a rigorous and challenging qualification. "Changes made to the curriculum in 2004 made it more accessible - for example by allowing combinations such as statistics and mechanics, while retaining core mathematical content and protecting intellectual rigour. "These changes also overcame problems with the transition from GCSE without reducing the level of difficulty, and were made after extensive consultation with the mathematics community.

"Right now, plans are in place to stretch the brightest candidates even further. The new A-level, which is being piloted, will stretch the most able candidates with more open ended, less structured questions and the A* grade will ensure that exceptional attainment is recognised and students are better prepared than ever before to study maths at university."

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Australia: Anger at kindergarten sex lessons

The usual Leftist attempt to debauch children in the name of "education"

A PARENT has complained her five-year-old daughter was taught sex education at a school in Hobart and revealed she was assaulted by two boys in her class just after the visit from Family Planning. The claims have prompted calls for the course only to be taught with parental consent. The parent, who did not want to be named, said her kindergarten child had come home and "said the word vagina". "I was shocked," she said. "They were taught what a penis and a vagina was, which I don't think they should in kinder. "I told the principal if I had known anything like that was going to happen, I would have kept my kids at home all week."

The parent said her child told her about the alleged assault when she put her to bed that night. "That's when she told me that two boys in her class had put their hands down her pants, and she said she bashed them," the mother said. "She said it happened in the dolly corner. "There were three adults in the room and 16 kids and no one saw it. She said she did tell the teacher, but the teacher seems to think she did not tell."

Pembroke Labor MLC Allison Ritchie said the allegation would be investigated. "I have had an undertaking from the Education Minister's office that this incident will be fully investigated," she said. Ms Ritchie said she had also heard complaints from people delivering the course, who had turned up to a school in the North-West only to find parental consent had not been sought. She said the children were part of a protective behaviours course.

The complaint parent said her six-year-old and nine-year-old children had all been put through the course. "I never knew it was happening until they all came home and said," she said. "I don't think they should do it at that age, maybe Grade 6 or Grade 7, not kinder and prep. "But the principal said the Government said it was compulsory for kids to learn about their bodies at that age. "They told me that it was Family Planning, they came in to talk to the kids about their bodies, who could touch them and who could not."

Ms Ritchie said all schools should ensure that parents had the opportunity to give their consent and view the content of such courses. "Parents should absolutely be able to opt out," she said. "It is not compulsory for every child. "You might say I am happy for my Grade 7 child to participate, but not my kinder child." Ms Ritchie said most schools were doing the right thing and gaining consent.

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