The hijacking of the school curriculum

Frank Furedi has a characteristically well-written and thought provoking essay up on the Spiked site:

Johnson’s title, education secretary, is something of a misnomer. He seems to have no interest in education as such. His preoccupation is with using the classroom to transmit the latest and most fashionable prejudices.

He can’t even leave school sports alone, recently announcing that PE lessons will now stress the importance of a healthy lifestyle and will raise awareness about the problem of obesity. So after children have received instruction on how to behave as green consumers, learned crucial parenting skills and feel very British, they’ll be taught how and why to lose weight.

A curriculum devoted to a total makeover has little energy left for dealing with such secondary issues as how to gain children’s interest in real education.