Product Description

British Education is in a state of meltdown. Throughout the system, from nursery classes to degree courses, the relationship between teacher and pupil has been undermined, and the idea that children should be taught a body of rules at all, whether in maths or grammar, is now taboo in many schools. Systematic instruction has given way to approximations and guesswork. The result is a rising tide of illiteracy. Melanie Phillips' devastating book is the inside story of a social debacle. But the collapse of education is not viewed in isolation. At the heart of the problem lies cultural and moral relativism, the doctrine that no values can be judged to be any better or worse than any other. The primary effect, particularly in the last twenty years, is the collapse of the authority of the institutions. Melanie Phillips sounds a warning and offers a blueprint to restore authority and meaning to society.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #243797 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 395 pages

Review
'Prophetic and provocative, this is likely to become the most discussed work of social criticism since Allan Bloom's THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND.' Jonathan Sacks '... [a] seminal book... the issues Phillips discusses are what really matter... it is deeply disturbing that so many educationalists appear unable to accept any evidence which challenges their own complacency and prejudice.' Chris Woodhead, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools, SUNDAY TIMES 'An awesome polemic... If we fudge her questions, we will be courting disaster... The reader is swept along by this passion which is linked to superb writing and a fiercely independent mind.' GUARDIAN 'Essential reading' SPECTATOR '...a book which raises many uncomfortable questions for those of us who care about what is happening in our society.' Ian Wilson, Head Teacher, FABIAN REVIEW 'A brave book... Like the good journalist she is, she uses personal interviews to great effect, but she has also done her homework... as she is right on all the important issues, she is also right to protest as energetically as she does.' Dr Eric Anderson, TLS 'I have finally got round to reading the most terrifying book of the decade and recommend it to every parent, grandparent and teacher who cares about the education of the next generation.' EXPRESS

Sunday Times
"seminal"

Guardian
"an awesome polemic"

Customer Reviews

Post-Modernism Hoisted On Its Own Petard!
Reading the review excerpts in the first few pages of 'All Must Have Prizes', I howled with laughter at 'Professor' Ted Wragg's asinine comment. How neatly and clearly it demonstrated the furor that Melanie Phillips has caused on the postmodern left and how inarticulate and ineffectual their response is.

This is lucid, intelligent writing of a kind so sorely needed in Britain. It is a well-structured and cohesive rebuttal to the canards of increasing standards in education and shows the emptiness of the Blairite stress on 'Education! Education! Education!' to be the mindless squawking that it really is. The scope of this rebuttal is wide ranging but thorough and Phillips charts the history of the British decline in a way that it easy to follow and draw conclusions from.

I had expected more hysterical denunciations of everything that is wrong about Britian - I didn't get them. Instead, Phillips writes with clarity and good sense to reveal the often-hidden motives of those sections of the left-liberal establishment that control the long term future of us all. From the academics who theorise and formulate, to the media who transmit and finally to the policy makers (fellow-travelllers all) who implement, Phillips shows how the damage has been done over the last 50 years to the educational system in order that we are all dumbed down without realising it. Worse still, we have been taught to laughingly dismiss any conerns about this process as conservative paranoia. For those who think this might be a British phenomenon, please read Linda Schrock-Taylor or John Taylor-Gatto in the US...they chart the American cultural decline through education to the place where Britain is heading.

However, there are no solutions offered. How can one reverse such a cultural decline that is so wideranging? The decline in education is one aspect of a much bigger picture that we have allowed to be painted by our own indifference. Perhaps this is where the battle standard needs to be picked up by others and the decline reversed.

What happened to British education?
Anybody with half an eye on the British education system will have noticed strange things happening in the last 10-15 years. The progressive advance of GCSE grades coupled with increasing alarm at the lack of literacy and numeracy; the explosion in the numbers of "universities" accompanied by the reported decline in quality of research.

Melanie Phillips, in "All must have prizes", has sought to analyze the education system, to find out exactly what is going on. The starting point sounds predictable - a black councillor's outburst at the denial of access of deprived children to quality education. But the charge is levelled not at the conservative establishment, but a left-wing education authority. From this point, you know that the book is going to draw startling conclusions.

Phillips looks firstly at different areas in the education system, examining the collapse in areas such as literacy, numeracy, language teaching and science. In the second half of the book, she looks more widely at society, to trace the changes that have occurred that led to this breakdown. The heart of the problem, she believes, lies in the collapse of external authority. She advocates a restoration of such authority as a step to reversing the decline in education.

It is interesting to read this challenge to the post-modern, relativistic consensus coming from a humanistic rather than a theistic source. As a Christian, I would have no problem with the idea of an external, absolute authority. I suspect that without care, Phillips' model of such an authority bound to society would be a step towards totalitarianism.

The book is written in a fluid, journalistic style, and is easy to read on the whole, although it does wrestle with quite complicated political and philosophical issues. Perhaps the polemic of Phillips' argument is excessive at times. However, if a quarter of what she says has substance, her analysis requires serious consideration.

A "Must Read" book
After interviewing a collection of 16 year olds for an apprenticeship, I was struck by their general approach and chronic lack of basic scientific understanding. I sat there thinking, "did I have this approach at their age - was I this short of understanding ...etc."
I decided to investigate why this state of affairs has arisen; I was pointed in the direction of this book.
What I found worrying is the extreme ridiculing of those that stand up against this rise of political correctness, and ideology. The fact that my taxes are paying for this is even worse.
One can only sympathise with the children who have been so sorely let down by today's education system, they are in for such a shock when they start working.