I have come to the conclusion that a basic requirement for a politician is to have absolutely no common sense. To be honest, I have harboured this suspicion for a long time, but an article in yesterday's newspaper finally convinced me that I am correct.
The Secretary of State for Education (I think that's his proper title) has announced that all 11-year-old children in the country are to be given a cookery book contained 32 recipes for healthy meals. The idea is to encourage them into the kitchen so that they learn to cook. Furthermore, cookery will be introduced into the school curriculum.
It was not so many years ago that the then Government (I can't remember which party was in power at the time) decided that cookery should not be part of the curriculum and closed the teaching kitchens in the schools. Now they will spend millions rebuilding them!
Similarly, a few years back children were to be given the choice of whether or not to learn a foreign language - something which had for many years been compulsory for many, if not most, pupils. Unsurprisingly, the majority of pupils dropped French, which was the usual second language. Now the powers that be have decided that the country is losing out because we have insufficient linguists and French will once again become compulsory.
Our children are also becoming overweight, partly because they take insufficient exercise and play sport too little, so more sports are to be played at school. But the Government forced many schools to sell their playing fields!
Is it any wonder that I sometimes despair?
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