In the UK today thousands of students...

[p_p_man]

will be receiving their 'A' level results. Their gateway to higher education.

Every year the percentage of passes rises and this year it's an unbelievable 94.3%. It's forecast that it's swiftly heading towards 100%! Who's going to believe that?

Are the kids getting cleverer?

Are the exams getting easier?

Or is it a Government plot to make sure the job market isn't flooded by unwanted job seekers?

The figures for those receiving state unemployment benefit have just been announced. They've dropped yet again. Imagine the effect on them if the thousands of kids going on to University because of fixed exam results suddenly find they haven't reached the standard they require and enter the job market instead...

But with 'A' levels quickly becoming the exam you cannot fail in 10-15 years time the middle management of the UK will be staffed by sub-standard strugglers...

ppman

 

[wizbit9]

as a trainee teacher my stand on this is that it is true that the pass rate has increased and in my opinion this is due to there being more study aids and help availiable to the children for them to gain their grades.

internet, books, private tutorials, school workshops.

however saying that if you look at a'level papers from 20yrs ago you can see similarities between the papers as of university first year ones.

the government need to find a middle on it all.

i've already seen the bullshit tv interviews this morning stating that "in our school 85% passed with a a-c grade"

these are the top class schools and not an honest representation of the majority of schools out thre. for example my mother and father had there results back from their repected schools and had. 42% and 36%. And i know this is a bad reflection on other wise good teachers.

 

[SINthysist]

It's everywhere. US/UK, etc...

Now the Chinese are STILL teaching!

But then, they expect to rule the world eventually.

 

[Ask For More]

In the UK anything over an E is a pass.
You'd have to be a complete monkey to get less than an E in any paper. A-levels are much easier now than they used to be, but the consequences of poor grades are still the same. You still need 3 A's and pretty big brain to get into a top 5 university, although the AS levels which were implemented a couple of years ago have buggered things right up. I'm just glad I went through when it was less confusing and I only had to do three subjects!

 

[SINthysist]

I mean, lets face it...

Even a dolt like myself can get a college degree!

Even a doctorate!

Especially in the touchy-feely sciences and the eco-socialist sciences. A creative mind like mine might even be able to do ground-breaking work in the flat earth sciences...

 

[Awesome]

I must be below a dolt.

I didn't finish year nine.
So i only done 2 and a half years of secondary edumacation.

I'm street smart though.

Seriously,in Aus,in da bush where i live,higher education,college,uni,whatever,aint all that high on the list of priorities.
Finding enough money to buy beer or remembering your drug dealers phone number is SO much more important.

 

[red_rose]

I wrote a lovely piece of satire on this when I was in high school.

Luckily, the teacher I had in that English class agreed with my total distaste for the education system in our area (and beyond).

She gave me an A+.


Oh, wait... maybe she was just giving me that grade!

Shit. Now I'll never know.


But, in all seriousness, it is a ridiculous situation. How many points do we get now just for writing our name on our SAT? It used to be 200, but I think it went up when I was a freshman in high school.

There are still some good school systems out there. I happen to be a fairly strong supporter of the Houston Independent School District (although others may not agree). It has its downfalls, but of the four states (and four different education systems I've experienced), HISD has surpassed them all. I was struggling to make my Cs and Ds when I was in Houston.

I graduated with honors and a 3.8 GPA from a high school in South Jersey.

Did my class standing make it easier to get accepted into college? Hell yes.

Was I READY for college? Not in the least. The kids in that town are being raised to work blue collar jobs and grow up in the same small town. Our valedictorian went to community college after high school!

Anyhow........ rant over.

We need a bettur edjukashun sistem.

 

[Awesome]

Just a quick point.

Not all us uneducated dolts are bad spellers.

Nup.
Uh uh.

 

[red_rose]

Just a quick point.

Not all us uneducated dolts are bad spellers.

Nup.
Uh uh.

lol

Didn't mean to imply that.... I know a lot of "educated" people who can't spell worth shit.

 

[Awesome]

I know you didn't mean to imply that.


Dont mind me.
I'm trying to get my posts up so i can have my av an you people can fucking recognise me.

 

[p_p_man]

I've always suspected that exam pass marks...

are manipulated by the Government.

I entered the British Civil Service in the early 1960s and was very proud of my pass position in the top 200 out of 3500 candidates who took it that year.

It wasn't until years later when I was studying for my BSc where one of the courses touched upon the subject of education and jobs, that I came across what I now think is the truth.

When I took my Civil Service exam the government already knew, through there own statistics, that there would be a shortage of personnel to fill certain jobs further down the road. Exams of all kind were therefore manipulated to counter that shortage.

Now it may be for the reason I stated above. That thousands entering the job market just at the moment is something the Government doesn't want.

It makes more sense than a continual upward climb of exam passes (regardless of grades) in the 94%+ range.

ppman

 

[SINthysist]

The scary part is that civil service, governmental agencies, etc., tend to promote the incompetent to positions where they can do "less" damage. So when you lower the bar...

...you get Blair and Bush?

 

[p_p_man]

The scary part is that civil service, governmental agencies, etc., tend to promote the incompetent to positions where they can do "less" damage. So when you lower the bar...

...you get Blair and Bush?

Blair and Bush are political. But you're right. Civil Servants etc are the only people in the UK who get automatic promotion based on how long they've been in the job. It's called the "Seniority List".

Got nothing to to with ability at all.

So that system AND lowering the bar you get...

a fuck up!!

ppman

 

[mig]

Depends which branch of the CS you're in.

Never happened in the Inland Revenue.Took me 6 years to move
one grade.Then another 14 in the same one.

I've known people who served over 30 years in the same grade.

 

[CoolidgEffect]

I mean, lets face it...

Even a dolt like myself can get a college degree!

Even a doctorate!

Especially in the touchy-feely sciences and the eco-socialist sciences. A creative mind like mine might even be able to do ground-breaking work in the flat earth sciences...

The two are not necessarily connected. The US has one of the best Higher Education systems in the world. It is in a sense one of our best export products. While our middle school system is rather average.

Grad inflation in High School might muddy the waters for college matriculation, but not graduation. Freshman and sophmore year some students get monkey scores on their exams. They whine. They fail. Bye Bye.

There is trouble with grad inflation in higher ed. as well, but in general those people were going to pass anyway.

 

[Don K Dyck]

will be receiving their 'A' level results. Their gateway to higher education.

Every year the percentage of passes rises and this year it's an unbelievable 94.3%. It's forecast that it's swiftly heading towards 100%! Who's going to believe that?

<snip>

ppman

Hi PP, If you were a politician and you had the option of having an increasing unemployment queue or a state owned child minding service, which would you choose, politically???

Most politicians have chosen the child minding option. it's very cheap really, now that it is dominated by women, just pay women's wages. Of course, most of the men will leave and you will have a staffing shortage like now, but then you can recruit from the colonies where they have the same problem exactly for the same reasons.

What is most important in this strategy is that you promote the least capable teachers out of the classroom and into administration where they can perpetuate their low expectations and select new staff who are even less competent than themselves. That way their own positions will secure until pension time. Just turn up, make no waves, talk the talk of reform but change the educational focus every year just to ensure that nothing changes.

Of course, the best way to ensure that the educational standard declines is to institute a system-wide assessment procedure and complain that the underskilled teachers, former students from early in your administration when academic standards began to decline, lack the necessary skills to do the job. (Your early attempts to oversimplify the education system because you personally found it too hard have absolutely nothing to do with the decline in education standards).

The moral of this story is if you pay peanuts you get monkeys - and that is what has happened in Britain, US and Oz.

Politicians have a project life of one election campaign, and no further. Education requires a lifetime.

 

[bluespoke]

Depends which branch of the CS you're in.

Never happened in the Inland Revenue.Took me 6 years to move
one grade.Then another 14 in the same one.

I've known people who served over 30 years in the same grade.

Ten years in the Revenue and I jumped the fence to work in the private sector - much more remunerative!

 

[Weird Harold]

Are the kids getting cleverer?

Are the exams getting easier?

Or is it a Government plot to make sure the job market isn't flooded by unwanted job seekers?

I do belive that kids are getting smarter, but thats NOT a result of anywestern country's educational system.

The Exams are probaly getting easier, but I dont think it's a government plot to reduce unemplyement. I think it's the result of changes in "educational theory" over the last fifty-seven years or so.

Actully, it's all Dr. Benjamin Spock's fault; the cockamamie child rearing theories he foisted upon the English speaking world got insinuated into the educational system disguised as "Peer Promotion," "The New Math," and "Pass/Fail" grading.

Now, with the third generation of teachers brought up under the touchy-feely, "esteem is more important than knowledge" education theory, the obvious solution to "tough" tests is to make them "easy" tests and just call them "tough" instead of the better solution of teaching kids what they need to know.

 

[deliciously_naughty]

I think that we pay more attention to our kids now and expect them to develop faster. As a result, they are.

 

[MagicMan]

I wrote a lovely piece of satire on this when I was in high school.

Luckily, the teacher I had in that English class agreed with my total distaste for the education system in our area (and beyond).

She gave me an A+.


Oh, wait... maybe she was just giving me that grade!

Shit. Now I'll never know.


But, in all seriousness, it is a ridiculous situation. How many points do we get now just for writing our name on our SAT? It used to be 200, but I think it went up when I was a freshman in high school.

There are still some good school systems out there. I happen to be a fairly strong supporter of the Houston Independent School District (although others may not agree). It has its downfalls, but of the four states (and four different education systems I've experienced), HISD has surpassed them all. I was struggling to make my Cs and Ds when I was in Houston.

I graduated with honors and a 3.8 GPA from a high school in South Jersey.

Did my class standing make it easier to get accepted into college? Hell yes.

Was I READY for college? Not in the least. The kids in that town are being raised to work blue collar jobs and grow up in the same small town. Our valedictorian went to community college after high school!

Anyhow........ rant over.

We need a bettur edjukashun sistem.

Hm shows what you know. Need? As everybody knows need should be spelt knead. Eaven eye no thatt

 

[Ishmael]

A migration to 'outcome' based education. The kids aren't smarter. And there has been no quantum leap in the facility with the English Language, that's for sure.

90 some percent of Harvard grads are now 'honor' students. An improbable as that may seem.

Oh well, you reap what you sow.

Ishmael

 

[Saint Peter]

I am a construction worker and it still amazes me how many of our high school grads cannot add 1/4 + 3/8. Get back to the basics and quit with the meaningless tests.

(5/8 for all of you math haters)