English Higher too English for critics

Published on Saturday 17 May 2008 19:37

THE Higher English exam is just a bit too, well, English. Discuss.

Academics have criticised last week's Higher English paper for featuring prose passages about countryside issues south of the border rather than Scots subjects and texts.

The controversial passages appeared in the "Close Reading" Higher English paper which thousands of Scottish schoolchildren sat last Thursday. One, by writer Richard Morrison, had as its first three words "The English middle classes" and then managed to mention England or English twice more in a piece less than a page long.

The Higher was set by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).

Gillian Beattie-Smith, a lecturer in English for the Open University and for Telford College in Edinburgh

said: "It has an Anglo-centric focus on English and cultural identity which is not what the curriculum is supposed to be about. I and others have spent years trying to make students feel positive about Scottish literature and Scottish language. And now all this is being undermined by the SQA. It really angers me."

William Maley, professor of English literature at Glasgow University agreed. He said: "We have a rich heritage of writing here and they could have juxtaposed the writing about the English countryside with a piece about the Scottish countryside or urban Scotland."

However, the quango rejected the criticisms. An SQA spokesman said: "As a subject area, English is universal and the purpose of this section is to let candidates show they understand what the author is expressing, regardless of an essay's locus."