The immortal Bard was given the bird yesterday as an aid to career-minded students, on the grounds that iambic pentameter is not much use in job applications.
Too much time spent on Shakespeare and other classic "canonical literature" is forcing out humbler but more useful studies, such as lessons in writing CVs or formal letters, according to research by academics and local education authority staff.
"We rushed in too quickly in 1993, when we made it a requirement of the national curriculum to have Shakespeare given such prominence," said Sig Prais, professor at the National Institute of Social and Economic Research, who led the research team.
The study blames the over-emphasis on classic writers for under-achievement in less academic pupils, who struggle with gender-swapping Tudor nobles when they could be acquiring "transactional" language skills. These would encourage simple, clear expression and fluent letter-writing.
Working with staff from Dagenham and Barking council in east London, Prof Prais compared local 14-year-olds' language skills with counterparts in Switzerland, and found that Shakespeare's countrymen and women were lagging three years behind.
"The study is really about what are the factors in English schooling that lead to a longer tail of lower achievers which we originally noticed in maths but also appears in literacy," he said. "This was one of the factors, among others, which led to a greater proportion of youngsters simply not coping with what is put before them."
On the Continent, the report says, the shadows of Goethe or Molière fall less heavily. Prof Prais said: "It's not that they don't study their literary canons, but more time is devoted to the requirements of life - for example, how to write letters of application to employers or landlords."
The report is not entirely damning of Shakespeare, however, and is unlikely to revive calls made last year for the Bard to be dropped as part of the English core curriculum. The government has made it clear that this will not happen; but anyway, the playwright would agree with many of Prof Prais's views on taking the pomposity out of English.
Shakespeare's spelling, for instance, was often phonetic, and the professor is a member of the Simple English Society which believes in spelling enuf like that. The great playwright also clicks with most children who discover lines like "his breath stinks with eating toasted cheese" (Henry VI, Part 2).
Or, as Shakespeare might say in reply to Prof Prais, "You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!" (Henry IV, Part 2).
