Schools focus too much on Shakespeare. Most people are going to have studied very few plays from the past 400+ years; a large chunk of those are going to come from just one man.
Just to pick one example, Marlowe seems to have been considered to be at the same level as Shakespeare by their contemporaries; however, I've met few people who have read his stuff (or can even name his stuff). And that's picking someone from the same time period and same country. Imagine how many authors across the world and from a period of hundreds of years most of us have missed out on.
Failed higher English twice in Scotland and was forced to read one more Shakespeare play than I would have needed to if I had passed.
How they can pass this off under the subject of "English" is beyond me (the left hand page was the Shakespeare version, right hand page was the translation to modern English). It has provided me with absolutely no benefit in my life since I studied it.
Just to pick one example, Marlowe seems to have been considered to be at the same level as Shakespeare by their contemporaries; however, I've met few people who have read his stuff (or can even name his stuff). And that's picking someone from the same time period and same country. Imagine how many authors across the world and from a period of hundreds of years most of us have missed out on.