Sir, – Mary Daly’s article (“Entrepreneurial spirit stifled by education”, Business Analysis, July 19th) is a provocative riposte to those who see education not as a mechanical ingestion of particular skills and facts, but as intellectual training, the creation of mental agility and the encouragement of radical thinking and curiosity.
One important point is that we must not read history backwards. It was quite logical for schools and universities in the 19th and early 20th centuries to offer a classical and literary education, because that was what got you a decent job in the imperial and home civil services or in the churches, banks and insurance companies. Then, as now, parents wanted the best for their children. It’s just as logical for today’s students to go into technology- and pharma-related courses. But this, from the perspective of 50 years hence, may be seen as archaic and perverse as Latin and Greek in the 1920s or 1950s may seem to us. If educationalists simply concentrate on teaching their students how to think, it will probably be of more benefit to society in the long run. One further comment: a study I have made of Cork Grammar School in the 1882-1920 period shows that this Irish school was very responsive indeed to its customers – the school’s curriculum was constantly changing to meet the needs of local as well as non-local employers. In this, it could be argued it was much more “modern” than today’s system, when educational and curriculum planning is from the top down, is bureaucratically driven and lags rather than leads. – Yours, etc,
IAN d’ALTON,
Rathasker Heights,
Naas, Co Kildare.