Sir Tony Blair’s Tone-deaf suggestion that Stem subjects should dominate the curriculum of all schools would paradoxically take education back to the ancient world, when education was designed to benefit only the few.
Take Rome. Wealth in the ancient world lay in land, which the rich exploited for all it was worth. Needing to protect their investment, Romans used their power to ensure that it was they who governed the state. The education system was designed to train them in winning arguments in the Senate and to protect themselves and their money in the courts.
That left the remaining 90 per cent to fend for themselves, most trying to survive on a small land-holding, providing enough of a surplus to sell at market and buy what they could not themselves produce. Local workers and traders met that need, which increased dramatically as Rome’s power spread and its cities expanded.
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