GCSE English Without Literature

As a former examiner for A Level economics, I take an interest in exam standards.

I was interested to hear that GCSE English can now be taken by looking at travel brochures or biographies. The idea is that as long as students are studying the application of language, it doesn’t matter what form of English it is.

Call me old fashioned but I can’t help feeling studying Shakespeare, George Orwell and Wordsworth is somewhat more enlightening than reading about package holidays, with wide sunny beaches, cheap beer and  Tapas bars on the Costa del Sol.

I wonder what they could do to the Economics syllabus. Perhaps they will look at the application of opportunity cost to the contestants of Big Brother or some other awful reality TV programme?