On Tuesday 05 February 2002 00:57, 'Frank Shute' wrote:
Yes but there are too few of them to go around. That's my point. So some students who can't hack A level maths to Computer studies, GNVQ ICT etc and the universities need to fill places so they take students that they would not have done a few years back.
That's my point too! They're taking students they really shouldn't be taking because a decree has gone out that 50% of people should go to university.
Not s much a decree as a comparison with other countries and the view that keeping more people educated for longer is what makes for economic prosperity.
So irrespective of the individual merit of an applicant, university's are feeling compelled into dropping standards
Another way of looking at it is that teaching in unis has to improve because there are higher expectations of what they should be able to get from students of lower ability. That is exactly what is happening in primary and secondary education. You can argue that its inappropriate for unis and there should be some other institution but that is probably just like the differentiation between grammar and secondary mods which is all but gone.
what is by any stretch of the imagination a bogus quota dreamed up by some think-tank
Not really, its just a matter of getting more people through HE. Its debateable about whether it should be 30,40 50 or 60% In the end it has to be done incrementally for the system to cope but if its good for some why not all? OK courses might have to be changed and additional qualifications but there are HNC etc as well as degrees.
Computer studies at A level? From the sounds of it, it's a glorified MCSE in a lot of cases without the pupil necessarily having even programmed in a proper language or with an understanding of the basics of how a microprocessor works.
Whatever, that is not the real point. The thing is that these students get access to the courses otherwise quite a few university lecturers are out of a job.
As I indicated, I don't really care. Why give people jobs if they aren't worthwhile.
But they are worthwhile to those students and as an employer I would rather take on someone who has been to university even if they were not in the top 20% of students.
OK I agree these courses could be improved but you also need sufficient teachers capable of teaching mathematically more rigorous stuff and they simply don't exist in the numbers required.
Now we are beginning to suffer the consequences of the more choice/falling standards/lack of people doing intellectually rigorous subjects.
The few who do go and do maths/engineering at university get immediately cherry-picked by industry for well-paid jobs
Actually that isn't true either. There are plenty of people with pure maths and science degrees who then find it difficult to get into the jobs they want and things like engineering are often not well paid. Education has always had a problem competing with industry in the jobs market.
Example: A govt edict goes out that hospitals should reduce their waiting lists, the hospital managers pressurise the consultants to sort it out. After much moaning from the consultants the difficult but more severe cases are pushed to the back of the queue & the people with ingrowing toenails, piles etc. are dragged in to be operated on.
Equally examples can be found of management being more focussed and so on.
Result! The govt has turned the health service around & they've got the facts to prove it - waiting lists are coming down and the hospital league tables indicate that less hospitals are `failing' and meeting the Stalinist govt's bogus targets.
Except they haven't and because the figures are available they are a lot more accountable.
You can judge exam performance. If you want exam performance improvements (not necessarily an improvement in the educationservice as that depends on your point of view) you can set targets etc and it will improve - it has! That doesn't necessarily mean anything other than exam technique has improved but since so much store is put on exams its still an important indicator.
It's an entirely useless indicator. It indicates precisely nothing. It could be one of many things:
But I used to inspect schools for a living and the rigour in the teaching that you so want definitely improved with more focus on these output measures. They can actually tell you a lot. OK care has to be exercised and probably things have gone too far but it certainly made a much needed difference in the focus of many people. For example, statistically my youngest son would almost certainly have got a C in maths at GCSE not a D if he had attended a different school. Its easy to see it just by looking at the stats.
- Look at papers now & papers 30 yrs ago and judge for yourself. IMO they are a country mile easier.
There is a lot more on them now. All the independent studies seem to come to no conclusion on this. I did my GCEs 30 years ago and I know they were different not necessarily harder. Even if they are a bit easier does it really matter? Just take A/A* grades if you think C is too easy.
Then the studies suck and are done by people who are far from independent.
Again, not true. Radio 4 (nothing to do with exam boards AFAIK) got a reporter to do a GCSE in geography (he got an A GCE) and a GCSE student who got an A* to do the GCE. Conclusion from an examiner was the the reporter was good on factual knowledge but weak on analysis compared to the student. Ever watched University Challenge recently? Some very bright young people *and* these days they have to answer science and maths questions ;-)
But in any case lots more kids go to universities to do a wide variety of things. My youngest son is doing a degree in film making and some of that course was on data storage formats. He is one that did not go through a conventional A level route so in my day he would not have been at uni. I am glad he is and what he is learning seems useful to him in what he wants to do - set up his own business making films for companies.
I'm glad he's enjoying it but IMO he would have been better off doing a more `hands on' subject at a traditional Poly or College like he probably would have done 20 yrs ago.
It is hands on. He uses cameras etc, he has done practical electronics, practical programming, business studies, maths etc. Why do you think things in the past were always better?
Back then they managed to integrate such a subject well with job experience and such like.
What makes you think that they don't now? He has had commercial jobs to do as work experience. He was commended by a BBC cameraman for a piece he did when he was doing a BTEC in media studies (another maligned subject based largely on ignorance - Chris Woodhead for one)
There was a more varied education available then: Unis, Polys, Colleges, apprenticeships...
No, ther ewas greater variety in the institutions which is a very inefficient and devisive means of delivery. Everyone can still find their niche. Unis are just different types of place and they have to change like everyone else.
So should we deny these kids on the grounds they can't pass A level maths?
No, you should deny them on the basis that university isn't the best place for them to learn such a subject.
They don't . In the case of my son the maths component is a small part of the course and its not at A level but it does actually bring him up in the areas needed. Stafford Uni seem quite capable of doing this. My other son graduated with a 2.1 in CAD from UCE but his main strength was using CAD software not maths. Does it matter? He works for his mother's computer company and is mainly involved in buying hardware and music technology. What matters is that he has had the opportunity to mature and develop in a technological environment the precise nature of it is not that important.
Education needs to be stratified but not just on the grounds of academic ability.
Seems to me that stratifying on the grounds of ability is exactly what you want. Education needs to differentiate on the grounds of ability but it also needs to be flexible and streamlined. The old system was anything but.
Maybe but perhaps its just as easy and cost-effective to change the nature of universities to be rather broader in their scope.
Broader scope means less real choice as to what sort of education you get - universities are just becoming higher education comprehensives and IMO comprehensives are good for no one except the politically correct.
Well I have to disagree with that. On the whole comprehensive schools provide scope for movement as well as differentiation. I do a lot of work In Kent LEA the last bastion of the grammar school and I see the damage done to the minority. You seem to have a strange mixture of politics. Pro-selection, anti-league tables, pro-elitism anti the Daily Mail ;-).
It is going to be difficult to change, but the way I see it the IT in schools agenda is still very much up for grabs.
Its ICT :-). ICT is not up for grabs, its politically symbolic and has been hi-jacked by the likes of BECTa who get funded to the tune of about £12m a year to further their agenda under the guise of being official advisors to the DfEE. The only real way to counter this is to set fires burning at grass roots level that will eventually roast the quangos and LEA bureaucracy into action.
That's right, it's no longer the top 10% who go to university it's the top 30% and that's not because all of a sudden 30% of the populace have got an IQ of >x rather than 10% a few years back.
Question is why set the cut off level at an arbitrary 10 or 30 %? That is like grammar schools at an arbitrary 25% or 30% if they are struggling for admission numbers ;-)
BTW, my understanding of IQ is that you can't change it by teaching full stop. It's whole premise is that a bright Aboriginal with no education whatsoever can have an equivalent IQ of an Oxford don.
Its just a short hand way of saying innate ability. You can make a difference to cognitive ability but that's traditionally been less emphasised than knowledge in exams because of the simple cost of examining. I doubt you can actually get a cultural, learning non-influenced IQ test.
Not convinced that this would change that much. I remember the exam boards pre- all this and they made mistakes too. Also I swapped to AEB from Oxford for my kids back in the80s because the questions were easier. Things haven't changed that much.
I did all my O's with Oxford bar maths! I was in the bottom stream of maths at school so they decided to go with AEB because the paper was supposedly a piece of piss - it was too, as evidenced by my getting an A grade and guys in the higher streams who were much better than me had to sit the Oxford paper ... and some failed!
So things are not any different. I did Cambridge and I seem to be older than you :-)
But in those days, 1977, all the boards papers were considered roughly equivalent except Oxford and AEB - Oxford the standard being higher and AEB lower. Now they're all jostling at the low-end of the market and they know that the lower the standard the more revenue for the company be it Edexcel or whatever.
QCA is the governement regulating body its predecessor SCAA. There has always been a regulating body for the exams so exams have to get past this body to go through. If you are saying QCA is politically corrupt, then the nature of the exam boards, whether public or privately owned or a charity is really irrelevant. other fields.
But the IQ/EQ argument is another thread :-)
The exams are easier to pass, there's no question of this - the results prove it.
No they don't, it might just be that the students are better prepared. Its interesting that the ones who have a vested interest in proving they are cleverer because they passed the exams when they were harder are us oldies. Bit insulting to some of the youngsters who work particularly hard. I have taught plenty of kids who were not as bright as me at their age but worked far harder and some who were simply a lot clever than me. Independent studies do not bear out your conclusions. Personally, I don't see it matters anyway. All you need is to provide routes for progression and ways for employers to make decisions and I see no evidence that either of these is compromised.
Give them a good kicking for being thick, stand them in the corner with a dunces hat on and they'll soon buck up their ideas.
(Just kidding ;)
But all the evidence suggests that nothing could be further from the truth. At the opposite end of the spectrum telling them they are wonderful no matter what is equally as ineffective. The devil is in the detail. regards, -- IanL