Many things, and addressing the intellectual poverty of the secondary school curriculum does not change social attitudes — primarily poverty of aspiration. Once, a decent education was the only route for working-class children to a "good job with prospects". Parents encouraged their children to work hard at school for this reason alone and there was also a general respect for learning and the learned, which died gradually from the 1960s onwards. Too many parents have no ambitions or aspiration for themselves or their children. That schools have dumbed down at the same time, discipline has weakened and respect for teachers vanished altogether has compounded the felony. Yet ask most parents, even the feckless ones, "Would you like your child to become a High Court barrister or consultant brain surgeon?" and few would answer "No." The general lack of respect for learning also means that the bright ambitious child in many a state school is both held back in mixed-ability classes, where everything is brought down to the lowest common denominator for the benefit of the least able pupil, and bullied mercilessly for wanting to study and having aspirations. Well, even Billy Bunter and his mates sneered at "swots" but it is more widespread and pernicious now. Teachers do not stamp hard on this form of bullying, usually because it is simply not recognised as such.

Perhaps low expectations on the part of some parents, their offspring and even teachers are unsurprising. But when the entire system has lowered its expectations and watered down the curriculum in line with that, that is shocking indeed and it is time to protest. Because not giving young people the opportunity to be stretched intellectually, to broaden their horizons and enrich themselves as far as possible is the worst betrayal of all.

What is to be done? Attitudes need to be changed. But these ships have a very wide turning circle and the watering-down and thinning out of the curriculum has gone on for so long that nothing will change overnight. But a start could be made.

So let us make a start and address the problem of modern digital versus traditional analogue. I am talking about joined-up education. Information and skills have been put before knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge simply for its own sake has become despised not merely by those who bully "swots" because they don't know any better, but by governments and those in authority who certainly should. Of course children need to acquire basic skills. Knowledge must be applied, essays written, projects completed, jobs done. But the sheer excitement of learning has been lost. Digital learning means that children are given information in unrelated gobbets. They read a couple of chapters of a book, learn about the rain forests or the Holocaust and other fashionable topics, flit about tasting world religions. Even examination questions are in multiple choice box-ticking format and short sentence answers required, rather than formally constructed essays. But the more digitally one tries to read and learn and respond, the more fragmented becomes the brain and one's learning. The analogue in this context is not just something almost obsolete: it is an essential way of acquiring knowledge. 

We need joined-up academic subjects. Yes, it is important to study certain historical periods in depth but not to uproot them from their contexts. The Roman occupation, the Renaissance, the two World Wars, can be properly understood only in terms of the whole great flow of our island's history, otherwise they become islands themselves. The line of history can be shown clearly on a well-designed and attractive chart, just as the shape of the British Isles can be on a map. There is a lot to be said for visual aids. 

It is always most saddening to see one's own subject being downgraded and to learn that many, perhaps most, first-year English undergraduates passed their exam without having read a single whole book, so that when confronted with the requirement to read an entire Victorian novel of 800 pages they turn white with shock. Yes, separate sections have to be analysed for exam purposes, but what beats reading the whole? Why would those reading English not want to read the whole-many wholes?