Education Supremo, Jo"Anagram" O' Merpus (78) today unveiled the latest plank in thegovernment's raft of measures designed to "Make education in Britainunrecognizable."
Education Supremo, Jo "Anagram" O' Merpus (78) today unveiled thelatest plank in the government's raft of measures designed to "Makeeducation in Britainunrecognizable." Its eagerly awaited plan to remove spelling from theschool curriculum will come into effect when the new school year starts inSeptember.
"As of September this year," Mr Omerpus (68) told reporters via textmessage from the bar of the Cheshire Fat Cat in his Nuthouse constituency,"Pupils, and indeed teachers, will no longer be required to demonstrate anability to spell, either in written term work or on exam papers. As long aswhoever reads their work can be reasonably sure of what they were probablytrying to say, then this government feels placing upon pupils and teachers theoutdated and pointless burden of spelling words as good as the boffs what writedictionaries is just perliticul (sic) correctness gone mad. It is high timethis fascistic torture was brought to an end."
Arthur "Sloping" Forehead (22), leader of the biggest teachers' unionwas for once in agreement with the government. "For once I am in agreementwith the government." he said.
In a semi-literate press release issued later, Mr Forehead's press releasewriter further elaborated: "We have long felt that education is aboutgiving the kids what they want, as one would with any consumer. This newmeasure aligns perfectly with the government's previous innovations of ditchinggrammar and school attendance. It certainly makes our jobs a teachers a loteasier and takes the stress out of correcting written work. Most of us have aproblem with the spelling side of things and no teacher wants to spend morning,noon and night with his face in a dickshonary (sic).
The Opposition's shadow minister for education was not so sure the governmenthad got it right. "We see nothing in these proposals," he said,"to reassure us the government has done enough to improve the quality ofthe ticks pupils are putting beside their multiple-choice answers. Ticks thatare too scrawled and barely legible can lead to misunderstandings and in theabsence of an ability to actually write words, a pupil needs to be able towrite his tick very clearly."
The government's senior educational adviser and reputedly the real architect ofa raft of educational reforms described by an enthused PM recently as,"not so much a raft as a veritable Titanic of long awaited change,"is psychiatrist Dr Pewee Druggem.
Dr Druggem told this reporter, "The impossible demands placed uponchildren that they learn to spell correctly undermine a child's self esteem inthe mistaken assumption that self esteem derives from accomplishment and not,as we now know, being patted on the head and given lots of sympathy."
He added,"It is also socially divisive, splitting pupils into two classes:those smug little snots who can spell and a disenfranchised minority who can't.It also gives the former group an unfair advantage in terms of things likefilling in job applications and benefit claims, and spellist employers toooften discriminate so that only one in a hundred job vacancies goes to a personunable to spell. Indeed, we find that invariably the only truly "equalopportunities" employers, so far as the alphabetically challenged areconcerned, are tabloid newspapers."
He went on to explain that that sinister undermining of a child's self-esteemcauses a severe mental illness in the vast majority of children, known as"Spelling Anxiety Disorder (SAD). "Well," Dr Druggem said,"we've levelled the playing field by more or less doing away with italtogether."
When I asked whether this dumbing down, in so far as it removed the stressleading to SAD, would cause the pharmaceutical companies to lose thesubstantial profits accruing from the sale of drugs to treat the disorder, DrDruggem said:
"We prefer the term LEVELLING down as dumbing down implies a valuejudgement. Fortunately the drug cartels will not lose out. We may beeliminating SAD but there is a newly discovered disorder caused by the stressof not being able to spell. It is called Anxiety Related to SpellingElimination (ARSE) and requires extensive medication to treat."
The British government's revolutionary new approach to education is capturingthe imagination of educators abroad. The Germans, French and Spanish inparticluar enthusiastically welcomed the reforms and all three countries reporta sharp rise in "Thick Englishmen " jokes circulating at both grassroots and governmental levels.
"Once again," said a French spokesperson, the British lead the way inproviding endless amusement for the rest of Europe."
Mr O'Merpus retorted, "Our European partners will laugh on the other sideof their faces when British workers pick up all the menial jobs available thelength and breadth of the Reich - I mean, Union."
The government is expecting its reforms to pay handsome dividends in improvedexam results next year. It is now five years since any British pupil flunked anexam and the government is quick to take credit for what it describes as not somuch a lowering of examination standards as a rise towards genius level of theentire population. Accordingly, ten-year-olds will now be able to sitmultiple-choice exams for PhDs in most subjects.
