"'A trawl through reports on examinations from the Twenties upwards reveals that there was no 'golden age',' said David Wright, chief executive of the institute. He cited an official report on O-level papers in 1958 which found: 'The standard of English was no worse than in previous years, but is still very unsatisfactory... The most evident, if not the most serious weakness, is in the spelling. A few examples will suffice: ammount, Brittain, Britian, buisness, bussiness, deffinate, fourty, fivety, ocurred, occured, payed, polytitions, publically, usualy.'"
It's a bit like reports about loutishness: there are some very modern-sounding tirades from practically ever age we have written records from. The reality is that our kids are probably better educated than ever. It's just easier to look at the inevitable downside and indulge our favourite passtime of moaning. And I speak as a trainee grumpy old man!
Education: Golden age of exams is a myth, say experts | Education | The Observer:
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