Less progress has been made in management, economics and development in moving subjects from intuitive knowledge to precision knowledge.

FORBES: Can Knowledge Be Collected? Lessons From The Health Sector

Digital games, which are increasingly integrating social components, offer the opportunity to weave soft skill development into more traditional subjects.

FORBES: Can Gamification Save Our Broken Education System?

Development aid is the wonkiest of wonk subjects, something the average person, at least until a few years ago, did not pay much attention to.

FORBES: Questions for Andrew Mitchell: British Aid, Defense and the Deficit

It was billed as a discussion of food and hospitality trends in France but the two-hour broad-based discussion hit many subjects within the topics of globalization, health, sustainable development and their impact on the food and hospitality industry.

FORBES: Can the French Protect and Promote Their Brand?

They also have to draw up a four-year development plan to improve teaching and learning in their specialist subjects, and explain how they will involve other schools and the wider local community.

BBC: Specialist schools 'better, faster'

In another development, university students are now able to take two-year "foundation" degrees in vocational subjects.

BBC: High-quality training is available, young people say

Ms Hughes-Hallett uses the lives of her subjects to capture Britain as it lurched forward into 100 years of peace, prosperity and unprecedented cultural and scientific development.

ECONOMIST: Literary table-talk