GCSE results 2011: quarter of exams graded an A

[Win2Win]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8720988/GCSE-results-2011-quarter-of-exams-graded-an-A.html

:ermmm What a joke. This just makes them worthless, and those that are ultra-intelligent basically have their grade watered down so more can fit in the 'A' bracket. :doh1: Exams are supposed to filter people into levels of ability. It's been proven that if an 'A' student sat the same level of exam they had in the early 90's they would only get a B or C.

No wonder businnes sticks with employing older experienced people.

[barneymather]

Hmm, let's examine the facts. Anthropologists will tell you that human beings take hundreds of years or perhaps more to advance their learning from one level to a considerably higher level, as the human brain's ability to understand, process and retain information simply doesn't increase exponentially over short periods of time like a microchip - I mean, we're stuck with what we've got, we're not Johnny Mnenomic.

And yet we're expected to believe that all of a sudden and apparently only in the UK we've produced a generation which has experienced a hefty jolt upwards in brain power due to better teaching and the hard work of pupils? It staggers me that there are intelligent people with authentically good qualifications who actually claim this is true.

A group of Durham University academics found that pupils now who sit A levels and receive 'A' grades would have received a 'C' grade 20 years ago, and there's no reason to believe GCSEs are any different. If anything, it'll be a worse scenario with GCSEs, given that far more pupils take them, the work is less demanding than at A level, and schools are under great pressure to improve the results of kids who leave school at 16.

Add to this mix politicians desperate to boast about how their educational policies are really working and you've got your answer: many exam results are now manipulated to such an extent that they're almost worthless.

[bettingtipster]

Interesting news this! From what I can recall every year seems to be a new record or have improved figures! But I guess it is fairly difficult to evolve education and what kids learn today with the grading system compared to that of 2o years ago!

[Win2Win]

Kids today don't even have to do a science, and most schools teach little IT in a high tech country :doh

[barneymather]

What these figures don't tell you is the proportion of these high marks which are due to coursework handed in over the year, which isn't exactly taxing nor does it encourage learning the nuts and bolts of a subject. Copying something out of a textbook or off the Web isn't going to help young people in a job or if they get into a university which doesn't engage in similar fiddling to produce 'good' results.

I'd also like to know which percentage of 'A' and 'B' grades were achieved in subjects which aren't of the Mickey Mouse variety. The reality is that many school leavers would be better looking at practical training rather than higher education, as far too many degree courses don't prepare students for the workplace.

Some argue against only producing 'over-ready' graduates for employers, but the problem in the UK is that there's little in the way of balance - we've got a huge glut of arts graduates and not nearly enough hi-tech graduates, which every modern economy needs. You can be sure that the brains behind the emerging economies of India and China (and they're emerging at high speed) are doing their utmost to ensure their country is producing plenty of technical graduates.

Of course there should be arts and humanities courses as well as those in science and IT, however only a small minority of graduates from the former will enjoy a well-paid career and they tend to have come from an older university and/or have all-important personal contacts in law firms, etc.

Despite the economy contracting, there are still apprenticeships out there, however many young people look down their noses at these, feeling that they 'deserve' a degree. Then they wonder why they can only get bog-standard jobs which lead nowhere when they graduate.

I'm pretty sure that even if apprenticeships were plentiful, employers would struggle to recruit enough teenagers, as many view themselves as 'university material' and manual work is something for their dad's generation. Certainly, the time to have dreams is when you're young and not everyone knows what they want to do at 18, but the former has to be tempered with a glance into what the real world is like.

There's no point entering higher education with a vague idea of working in the media - another sector which is stitched up by kids with contacts and well-off parents who can bankroll unpaid intern roles - when the chance of getting a job in that field is close to zero.

Of course there's always teaching, but that's massively over-subscribed as well, except for, guess what, in maths and IT roles. Far better surely to move heaven and earth to get a hands-on traineeship rather than muck about at uni for 3 years and then complain that all you can get is a job in a call centre when you get your degree scroll.

I really admire the Poles who've come to the UK, as from teenagers to the middle aged they work their socks off and don't see any job as being beneath them. Some say they're undercutting British workers, but what they're doing in most cases are jobs which British people refuse to do, and the fact that the latter are allowed to get away with this is scandalous.

Whatever mistakes Labour and Tory governments have made in the past - Labour's 'hammer the successful' tax policies in the 1970s were suicidal and the Tories were wrong to dispense with our manufacturing base in the 1980s - too many British people of all ages have lost the work ethic.

Governments hugely expanding higher education with pointless courses which teach young people little of value (there's only so far you can push the 'transferable skills' argument) in what could well be the most important years of their lives won't help to alter this attitude.