"Ridiculous", you say? Well, maybe my sarcasm is slightly overextended.
However, according to The Australian and The Daily Telegraph:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/shakespeare-too-hard-for-hsc-english/story-e6frg6o6-1225835374675
"Shakespeare too hard for HSC English"
* From: The Daily Telegraph
* February 28, 2010 10:55PM
* English Studies course on trial in 75 schools
* Syllabus focuses on movies and TV shows
* Intended for pupils who don't plan to go to uni
Well of course, just what the attention span challenged are in need of; nothing like more TV--and Movies like The Matrix to:
"...support students in developing proficiency in English (my emphasis) to enhance their personal, social
and vocational lives".
Their sidebar (complete with a lovely Droeshout engraving of Will from the First Folio) reads:
"Students who do not plan to go to university will study The Matirix rather than MacBeth because Shakespeare is deemed too hard and too irrelevant" Source: The Daily Telegraph
"The new syllabus is aimed at lower-achieving students who would have been at risk of dropping out of school at 15 or 16 under the old leaving age law."
So! the reason there are so many dropouts has something to do with Shakespeare?
My first thought, exactly. String up the Bum for "Irrelevancy" and "Difficulty"! :)--no, make that :( .
Shakespeare irrelevant? To what?--more like to Whom? ...and WHY? These questions yet to be answered by...maybe we should ask Keanu?
Thanks to The Shakespeare Standard http://theshakespearestandard.com/ for featuring this most disturbing revelation.
http://theshakespearestandard.com/2010/03/10/australia-hsc-course-dumps-shakespeare/
Sadly, JM
