Clause 1 - Duties in relation to high standards and the fulfilment of potential
Education and Inspections Bill
11:30 am
John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
Incrementally. I did not anticipate needing to teach the hon. Lady a lesson so early in our consideration, but I am happy to do so. The collective wisdom of the ages, which is transmitted across the generations, added to, of course, by each of those generations and vested in our institutions, both small and large, is of primary importance and is bound up with the very nature of civilised society. It would be wrong to ignore that in the education system and so to assume that one can be educated and accomplished without acquiring elements of that historical knowledge and the new knowledge that comes with each new generation, each new discovery and each reinterpretation of what we know, such things being not static, but dynamic. That is a fundamental part of the education process, but education is not about that alone.