There's a cultural issue here (and I mean the entire UK) with regard to educational achievement - possibly not unrelated to the cultural issue regarding alcohol. The PISA rankings make for depressing reading: Ireland, Canada and Poland make it into the top ten - along with the usual crop of hi-tech far-East countries, such as Japan and Korea. But in the Far East countries, teachers are regarded with and accorded great status, respect and deference. Education is seen as a competitive business that offers success and wealth.
Talk to the average 14 year-old boy in this area, and they've not a lot of good things to say about school. Boys have inexorably been falling behind girls for years, now, and this has to be related - among other things - to cultural expectations. Doing well at school isn't 'cool', and boys are very aware of and responsive to peer pressure.
I agree the system has to change; there's been far too great an emphasis on the sorts of things at which females excel - detailed work, writing, reading, keeping records, etc. The National Curriculum plays to female strengths, too, as it systematically encourages programme-based teaching and learning at the expense of innovation, creativity and spontaneity, so boys have been perceiving themselves as marginalised for years.
But the larger issue is culture. It doesn't occur much on here, but in many forums when one member points out errors in another member's writing, spelling or grammar they're often ridiculed as a 'spelling bully' or other childish epithets. Why is that? After all, if someone makes a mathematical mistake, they usually don't object to it being pointed out. But if someone uses English poorly or lazily they think it's fine. That's a cultural issue and that's where things need to be sorted out.
And it's important, too: if people continue to let their grasp on English slide, it can only have a detrimental effect on children and we lose important concepts. That's been happening for years: few now realise there's a major difference between Uninterested and Disinterested, so these words, which spoke to significantly different ideas, are now both being used to mean the same thing.
