Society

We live in the modern world, the developed world. The civilised world. But do any of us actually know what this means? When looking up the word "civilised" in the dictionary, the description reads: "to have a high state of culture and developed in both the social and technologic side". But are we exactly like the definition says? Are we at the highest point of life and civilisation? The answer is no. I believe we are far from perfect civilisation. We dream of a world without wars, poverty and oppression, where all are valued and free to live our lives. We hope for a world of play and happiness beyond the dull monoculture of this one. Just because we have more scientific breakthroughs and are electronically progressed does not mean we are a better society than we were in the past. Many events in the present day reflect my option that we are a less civilised nation than fifty years ago.

The degrading of society can be shown primarily through the down falling of our education system, our higher education system has slowly but surely declined due to standardised testing and exams. Sequentially, Highers and A Levels qualification grades have been lowered, therefore, Universities have had to accommodate below their low pass rate by not raising their entry numbers. Due to degraded marks in National tests, this overall means that the Grade Point Average (GPA) is at an all time low throughout the United Kingdom. In recent statistics, this has proven my point on GPA; in 2004, the average Grade Point Average was at 2.4 - in 2005, this had dropped to 2.6. Falling in the average of the GPA, could be blamed upon the bastardising of the English language: e.g. pupils being failed directly to writing their papers in "text talk" and modern slang. If pupils were to write their exam papers in such a way in the 1950's, they would be failed on the spot and automatically be unsuccessful in their other exams. The failing of pupils in the current system could coincide with the number of students skipping school and disrespecting teachers with the physical and mental ability to do so. In current news, it has been told that there are nearly seventy attacks on a teacher every day in Britain. This is in correspondence to the government abolishing the right for a teacher to punish a pupil adequately. However, the government have realised the error of their ways and are now too late to re-establish the law as if a teacher now was to "belt" the pupil, it is more likely that the pupil will retaliate with a stronger, more harmful force. This is reminiscent of what is happening in current affairs in America; the police are given semi - automatics to protect themselves and the public from criminals, whereas the criminals gain automatic weaponary. The law are then issued with bullet proof vests