Elizabeth Rata: The Curriculum, intelligence, and democracy

The intelligence of the New Zealand population increased during the 20th century. Nutrition played its part but so too did education. Young people were taught the abstract knowledge of academic subjects and in the process developed secondary intelligence. Since the 1990s, the emptying out of prescribed academic knowledge from the national curriculum is likely to reverse the trend. It’s a sobering thought that the population in the 21st century may be less intelligent than our 20th century predecessors.