Undiplomatic

Of course hardly anybody wants to do the Government's silly diplomas. Alongside very highly academic education for those suited to it and (although there was never anything approaching enough of this) very highly technical education for those suited to it, there used to be, and there should be again, institutions providing both exactly as much academic knowledge and exactly as much technical knowledge as most people really need. They were called Secondary Modern schools.

But we don't want to go back to them, do we? Well, at least they had the wit to teach some people (as it happened, girls) how to cook, and to teach some people (as it happened, boys) how to do odd jobs around the house. Both sexes could and should be taught these things.

Think of Jade Goody, who would have attended a Secondary Modern if there has still been any. I have never met a former Secondary Modern pupil who was unable to understand the word "wedlock", or who imagined there to be a foreign country called "East Angular", or who wondered why Eskimos' eyes did not freeze over, or who was worried about being made an "escape goat".