Thursday, August 17, 2017

A levels

Explainer: Jessi's mother complains that my blog posts too often assume more background understanding of an issue than some readers may have. Hence it behooves me to add here that 20-year-old Malala is a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. She is known for human rights advocacy, especially the education of women in her native Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, northwest Pakistan, where the local Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. She was injured in 2012 by a Taliban gunman when he attempted to murder her. More here.

from Gizmodo
"Malala Yousafzai will be studying 'Philosophy, Politics and, Economics' (PPE) at Oxford... a degree that has gone on to produce three British prime ministers, three Pakistani prime ministers, and three prime ministers from Australia, as well as other world leaders from Thailand, Ghana, and Peru. In the UK, it’s been described as the degree that 'runs Britain'. No other university, course, or private school pervades the British elite in the same way, according to a report by The Guardian. This was highlighted during a single day of campaigning in the 2015 general election, when the leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband (who studied PPE at Oxford), released his party’s manifesto. It was analyzed by the BBC’s then political editor, Oxford PPE graduate Nick Robinson, examined by the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Oxford PPE graduate Paul Johnson, criticized by the sitting prime minister, Oxford PPE graduate David Cameron, and defended by Labour shadow chancellor, Oxford PPE graduate Ed Balls. In 2015, no fewer than six members of the cabinet, including the foreign secretary and chief secretary to the treasury, were Oxford PPE graduates."

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