99% Pass rate?-Are we being fair to our teenagers?

[Gordon Booth]

After hundreds of thousands of years of gradual development, the human race has suddenly seen an explosive increase in its intelligence over the last 30 years!
That is what our exam results tell us.Exams have not got easier, we are told by BOTH main parties, so there can only be one answer.
97.6% A level pass rate, 98.7% GCSE pass rate! 27% A grades? These exams have lost their point when virtually everyone passes. Why not just give all our children a pass without the exam then the 1% don't feel left out?
Every child SHOULD have equal opportunity, and ALL children are equal but NOT in the same ways.They all have different strengths and the duty of schools is to show them where those strengths lie. To kid them that most of them should go to University and become doctors, lawyers,city men and be VERY rich is unfair on them. The result is that 150,000 of them now feel cheated out of their rights and many of those who get a degree still can't get a job. Then the mantra that no child should feel a failure ultimately fails itself, in fact this system is generating it.
So no teenager wants to do an ordinary everyday job like most of us did. And yet those jobs are MORE essential to keeping our civilisation going than ALL your fancy lawyers. They may never be as rich, but if that is where their abilities lie, encourage them, dont 'con' them into easy exams which leave them massively in debt and STILL without a job.
Are we not creating a generation of young people many of whom will eventually realise that they were mislead, kidded, conned, lied to and cheated out of a happy life doing what they were best at? And what price will we pay for that?

[gynn]

I agree that many young people are being misdirected into further education courses that will have little long term worth, but isn't one of the main reasons for that is because they have little or no alternative? There are no jobs for them to go into, so they opt for the easy way out. A further course of study to postpone the fateful day.

In the current economic climate, with businesses having to cut back on every item of "unnecessary" expenditure, the first victims of the cuts are training budgets. Apprenticeships are axed, and businesses make do with what they've got. But in reality, it is at times like this that apprenticeships and training are vital, as it is those people on whom the future recovery will be built.

To illustrate my point, perhaps Councillor Moss can tell us how many school leavers Hyndburn Council (the largest employer in the borough) is taking on this year?

[cashman]

Think its nuts what exams have become, can only see long term damage.

[garinda]

All I know is I took Maths O-level at QEGS IN 1981, and failed, with a miserable grade D, and then took a GSCE in that subject, at Brixton College, as a night class, many years later, and got an A*.

At the time one was beyond me, full of logarithms, quadriatic equations, algabraic fractions etc., whilst the other one was a piece of pish, about apples and oranges, most of which could be assured of a 100% pass mark, because it was completed as part of our course work.

Not taking anything away from today's young people, jolly well done, but I've said before, and do bear this in mind, but today's degree equals a pass of the old eleven-plus examination, and so on, and so forth.

[davebtelford]

I hardly missed a day at Accy Grammar. Was always one of the top students in the middle stream (we did O-levels after 5 years, top stream after 4) and did 90 mins. homework every night & 3 hours+ at weekends. Ended up with one arm longer than the other from carrying a briefcase full of books back and forth!

I managed to 'scrape' 9 O-levels & 3 A-levels with pretty mediocre grades. Anyone getting more than one A was quite unusual.

If today's exams are just as hard then today's kids MUST be much harder working and/or much cleverer. End of.

[garinda]

I don't think students today are any cleverer, or worse, than those of the past.

Exams have gotten easier.

Everyone's a winner.

At least in theory.

Though I do feel sorry for that very small minority that fail examinations nowadays.

They must have written their name incorrectly, on the front of the exam paper.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by garinda

I don't think students today are any cleverer, or worse, than those of the past.

Exams have gotten easier.

Everyone's a winner.

At least in theory.

Though I do feel sorry for that very small minority that fail examinations nowadays.

They must have written their name incorrectly, on the front of the exam paper.

Even when I was at school the used to say you got 10% for writing your name correctly on the paper

[garinda]

Originally Posted by jaysay

Even when I was at school the used to say you got 10% for writing your name correctly on the paper

Paper?

Not slate?

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by garinda

Paper?

Not slate?

Ya cheeky young pup

[Mancie]

Originally Posted by jaysay

Even when I was at school the used to say you got 10% for writing your name correctly on the paper

That can't be right .in my Technical Drawing exam I wrote my name and only got 8%

[garinda]

Originally Posted by Mancie

That can't be right .in my Technical Drawing exam I wrote my name and only got 8%

You'd have got a higher mark writing it on the paper, not the desk.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Mancie

That can't be right .in my Technical Drawing exam I wrote my name and only got 8%

I rest my case

[Ken Moss]

Originally Posted by gynn

I agree that many young people are being misdirected into further education courses that will have little long term worth, but isn't one of the main reasons for that is because they have little or no alternative? There are no jobs for them to go into, so they opt for the easy way out. A further course of study to postpone the fateful day.

In the current economic climate, with businesses having to cut back on every item of "unnecessary" expenditure, the first victims of the cuts are training budgets. Apprenticeships are axed, and businesses make do with what they've got. But in reality, it is at times like this that apprenticeships and training are vital, as it is those people on whom the future recovery will be built.

To illustrate my point, perhaps Councillor Moss can tell us how many school leavers Hyndburn Council (the largest employer in the borough) is taking on this year?

The simple answer is that I don't know but with the trims that are being made I would imagine 'not many' would cover it.

I was encouraged to go to university and was in the last batch of school leavers to get their fees paid. If I was in the same position now I would think twice, particularly as the average debt is £21k at the end of it. Not the best way to start your working life.

What I also found was that while I worked for three years to get the qualifications to catapult me into my new role as Director General of the BBC, my peers went to Granada as tea boys and ended up producing their own shows.

I did feel as if I'd made a mistake but put that new knowledge to practical use and set up a business of my own which is still thriving after eight years. University is not all it's cracked up to be in the real world and 90% of those who go just use it as an excuse to get wrecked every night away from home. Having said that, the foreign students all worked their nuts off, particularly the Chinese.

People fall into two brackets: academic and practical. I'm in the academic half, not bad with my brain but a complete idiot with any sort of DIY implement. In contrast, my brother is one of the best joiners I have ever seen in action but has absolutely no idea about how to run a home. He didn't bother with university and yet we are both successful in what we do.

I feel it depends on strength of will of the individual. I was convinced in my own mind that university would give me a huge advantage over those without a degree and I was wrong but the push to get young adults into further education is much stronger now and to go against that flow is going to take some doing, especially if all your mates are going as well.

We're living in an unfriendly world which is obsessed with making everyone equal, whilst at the same time deifying those with minimal talent and fame who appear on cheap television like The X Factor.

School results are based on the performance of the student on a handful of days in exam conditions, something you will never suffer again in your entire working life. My advice to any school leaver would be to look at the general direction in which you would like to end up going and only tackle university only if you really want to.

Getting a job at all these days looks like a nightmare and a degree is not the guaranteed ticket to employment that it once was.

[flashy]

waffle waffle

[Ken Moss]

QUIET woman!!!