An exam board is removing a poem about a knife-carrying violent loner from its anthology for GCSE English because of fears over teenage knife crime. The AQA exam board has decided to withdraw the poem Education for Leisure written by Carol Ann Duffy. The exam board is writing to schools to advise them to destroy the copies of the anthology - and says it will send replacements not containing this poem. Taken from the BBC website.
I'd love to know what Carol Ann Duffy has to say about this issue.
Apparently the poem is pro-education and anti-violence. It is not glorifying violence in any way.
I'd also love to know what Index on Censorship will be saying about this act of censorship. http://www.indexoncensorship.org/
When a country starts censoring it's artists or restricting what they can say alarm bells should ring loud, long and clear. Free speech is free speech and it's a right that should be closely guarded.
BBC Radio Four's iPM will have more on the subject on Saturday 6 September at 1730 BST.
fairplay
Pro 
I know! Lets also remove Romeo and juliet for underage relationships, Macbeth because of several incidences of knife crime too, King Lear for torture.
Also that naughty Charles Dickens for his description of child labour in Oliver Twist. And Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad for its uncompromising portryal of the abuse of central Africans by Europe and its un-PC description of tribe-folk.
The entire GCSE syllabus can be replaced with Spot and Hello Kitty. I was going to say Meg and Mog but witches won't go down well with the faith schools.
*Feels like indulging in his own bit of knife crime*