Robert Burns has been controversially removed as a standalone author for Scottish pupils taking Higher English
by Expensive-Key-9122
Robert Burns has been controversially removed as a standalone author for Scottish pupils taking Higher English
by Expensive-Key-9122
22 comments
So kids are wanting more diverse modern texts so the curriculum is following that trend? If Burns is only being talked about and taught in Scotland for Higher English alone I think we have already failed him. Hardly a big deal
Why?
>ROBERT Burns has been controversially removed as a standalone author for Scottish pupils taking Higher English.
>The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) defended the move – arguing that there is a decreasing interest in the iconic writer of A Red, Red Rose and Auld Lang Syne.
>For example, the Scottish exam chiefs noted that out of the 35,000 students who sat Higher English last summer, only 83 chose to answer a question on Burns.
>But the move has proven controversial for some, including Professor Gerard Carruthers, the Francis Hutcheson chair of Scottish literature at the University of Glasgow.
>”It is vitally important that we provide our young people with endless opportunities to study Burns,” he said.
>“He possesses a genius with words that’s almost freakish; similar to Shakespeare, Joyce and Blake.”
>We previously reported on how Nicola Sturgeon’s favourite novel, Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song, has also been removed from the Scottish set text list for Higher English.
>Other removed texts include The Cheviot, The Stag And The Black, Black Oil by John McGrath and The Cone Gatherers by Robin Jenkins.
>The SQA said its updated list of Scottish set texts was the result of a 2500-response consultation.
>”The feedback we received was clear,” Robert Quinn, the SQA’s head of English, said.
>”Teachers and lecturers wanted to retain the most popular texts, but they also wanted a list that is diverse and relevant for learners.
>”From learners we heard them say they wanted to see more modern and diverse texts that had challenging themes and strong emotional content.”
>New entries include Duck Feet by Ely Percy, a coming-of-age novel set in a Renfrewshire school, the Gaelic anti-war play Sequamur and poems by Imtiaz Dharker – who was born in Pakistan but grew up in Glasgow.
There is more to Scottish literature than Robert Burns.
Hey look, more cultural genocide, yaaaaay!
This is from the Scottish Set Text portion of the exam. It was the result of a teacher survey. In my view, the other poets are much easier to respond to in an exam, anyway.
Burns is still generally taught to some degree in the BGE curriculum. I am more concerned that some of the changes take away poems that were great for the exam process, and replace them with texts less well suited (not Burns, but from a few contemporary Scottish Poets).
This is ridiculous. Yes, there might be more to Scottish literature than Burns, but Burns is instrumental in the cultural resonance of Scots. It’s core canon. We should teach it.
Burns is shit.
Jesus the national really are the Scottish telegraph aren’t they?
>For example, the Scottish exam chiefs noted that out of the 35,000 students who sat Higher English last summer, only 83 chose to answer a question on Burns.
I wonder who the more popular authors were?
Some of the new additions are fun: Eli Percy’s writing is quite different to Burns, but a contemporary novel in contemporary Scots might be good for the language.
That said, while I have some affection for some of the other casualties — Sunset song, The cheviot, the Stag and the black, black oil… — I understand a lot of that’s down to the fact that I didn’t read them at school. Muriel Spark’s great, but her reputation is only just recovering from years of bairns having to drag their eyes through The prime of miss Jean Brodie
It’s an optional text but Pupils shouldn’t be forced to pass part of an exam on Scottish literature. And teachers shouldn’t be forced to teach it as 20% of the course. Nationalistic bollocks. But the gall of the SQA in choosing incredibly niche texts (Jekyll and Hyde aside) that aren’t modern or texts (specifically the plays) that are sub par compared to other texts in the same genre and expecting teachers to sell this is the most ridiculous part.
I mean if not many are interested in Burns it makes sense to change it for an option more likely to get choosen. I don’t think the people complaining have realised that they themselves could read Burns to their kids, buy them his works etc, if they were that worried since it’s fairly easy to do.
Just in time for Burns Night.
Maybe Hugh MacDairmid was on to something after all… ‘NOT Burns – Dunbar!’
Bet they kept Shakespeare #colonized
The irony here is that when SG announced the abolition of the SQA because it was too remote from teachers and pupils, the National was one of the cheerleaders. Now the – still not abolished – SQA has listened to teachers and children, the rag doesn’t like the answer. An object lesson in being careful what you wish for.
I was taught burns at multiple points in my school years. However my love and appreciation for how we in Scotland speak so differently in our local communities comes from:
Oor Willie and the Broons
No surprise. There has been a drip drip of negative noise about burns and his history from certain sides of the political spectrum for a while.
We studied Burns when I was in school and I genuinely cannot fathom why they thought teaching some impenetrable and utterly unrelatable stuff from some 200-year-old deep southern guy who was as culturally remote from us as Coleridge was a good idea. It was the 80s, though, they had some crazy ideas then.
Seems weird that Burns doesn’t appear at all. Thank goodness they dropped Sunset Song though – I remember being required to read it for Higher English and finding it utterly grim and impossible to relate to.
Aye keep your hair on, there’s still loads of Scottish literature in the higher English.
Ultimately pupils aren’t really choosing questions based on their interests, they’re gonna choose the text they understand well enough and have revised enough to answer
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