Fake news

The UK school curriculum is going to require teachers to teach their students how to spot fake news and articles that are just clickbait. They will also be taught how to use statistics to examine published results.

This is a great objective and a skill that people truly need but how can it be achieved? Fake news has moved on from Elvis and UFO sightings to reports that cause riots and attacks that then lead to real injuries.

As to teaching statistics, something I did, or tried to for over 30 years, there are few teachers that actually know how to use them so teaching them is difficult. What we have now is potential presidents that claim they won despite getting significantly less votes and the old favourites of election wins with over 100% of the counted votes.

The task would be so difficult that you wonder if this objective is itself fake news.

Dennis Fitzgerald,

Melbourne, Australia