Education Secretary Michael Gove has strongly criticised an exam board over a GCSE religious studies question in which pupils were asked: “Explain, briefly, why some people are prejudiced against Jews.”
I’m quite baffled at why this question was included, partly because I don’t see how it could be answered “briefly” – at least, if you want to go beyond “some people are nasty”. You could describe the characteristic attitudes of antisemitism straightforwardly enough, but to explain the causation – political, cultural, psychological, historical, religious – would be a lot more involved.
And of course there’s the moral objection:
Mr Gove declared: “To suggest that antisemitism can ever be explained, rather than condemned, is insensitive and, frankly, bizarre. AQA needs to explain how and why this question was included in an exam paper.”
“Insensitive” and “bizarre” are right: the question was bound to be received badly. But Gove’s second sentence there demonstrates that asking somebody to “explain” something doesn’t imply that you think it might be excusable.