Putting the A back in A-levels 4

TaxPayers Alliance Better Government

It’s that time of year again: the building up of nerves, the shrinking of fingernails and then finally, today, the A-level results were out. Students across the UK have, yet again, managed to surpass previous records of A-grade achievements with 25.9% of candidates achieving the top mark. The BBC reports that the number of A-level entries also increased to a record 827,737.

But on the back of the celebrations looms the reality of the result for the education system. Whilst the rise in the number of entries is a positive development, the expansion of the ‘A club’ is not. As with any commodity, the value of the A diminishes as its supply increases. That’s why universities aren’t jumping quite as high off the ground about results as the jubilant teenagers; the task of distinguishing between students’ capabilities has become ever more difficult.

Education is crucial. The quality of education a child receives at school should not be compromised. But it is; the government’s drive to show that ‘targets’ are being met has side-lined the potential for real reform. As long as examination regulators are accountable to the government and not parents, superficial targets will be met at the expense of genuine improvement. Examination bodies need to be made independent so that they can focus on providing more rigorous and challenging exams. Parents deserve a system whereby the money they pay for their children’s education is converted into credible, meaningful results.

TaxPayers Alliance

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sidsid

The real purpose of education is education, Education is not the passing of exams. It is the means of gathering information to be stored for subsequent use in understanding. Understanding anything and everything.
The main thing in education is learning how to learn.
If this is mastered the child will almost teach itself. So the first thing is to make learning how to learn interesting, and that is certainly not stuffing them with various “facts” to enable them to be reproduced in order to prove how good a particular government thinks itself to be.
sidsid

The real purpose of education is education, Education is not the passing of exams. It is the means of gathering information to be stored for subsequent use in understanding. Understanding anything and everything.
The main thing in education is learning how to learn.
If this is mastered the child will almost teach itself. So the first thing is to make learning how to learn interesting, and that is certainly not stuffing them with various “facts” to enable them to be reproduced in order to prove how good a particular government thinks itself to be.
Dave Clemo

Education- from the latin “educo”= lead out
Indoctrination- from the latin meaning drive in.
Ah, the benefits of a good education!
Giving everyone an A grade is the same as giving everyone a fail. It proves nothing.
In a Simpsons episode the teacher says to Bart “You’re all special”, to which he replies “which is the same as saying none of us are”
Ah, the benefits of watching too much TV!
Hardeep_Singh

Good one Dave, that one made me chuckle but I agree with the sentiment.