Once again, our children have, apparently, achieved 'best ever' exam results.
How long this fiction can be perpetuated is a matter for conjecture but what is irrefutable is that the results are a fiction. Today's children are educated in a way that is entirely alien to anyone of my generation - 50+. They take exams in manufactured subjects and in subjects that have no place in a school curriculum.
The release of exam results has become a major national event with ludicrous film of teenagers leaping around uncontrrollably and hugging each other as they discover that they've just been awarded 'A's or even 'A*', in a dozen subjects ranging from needlework to 'art and design', but with no sign of anything that might lead to a genuine career. There's no sign of chemistry, physics or biology, nor any languages, nor of history. Geography sometimes turns up but it's nothing anyone of an earlier generation would recognise: ask the students to say where Africa is on a map and they'll struggle; ask them to tell you why Africa has regular famines and they'll bore you to tears. Their abilities in English and maths seem shockingly limited, even when they have achieved the most exalted of grades, and our premier universities seem to have recognised this in their introduction of an assortment of remedial courses for new recruits to their courses.
As it happens, it seems that the establishment has finally started to wonder about the system we have in operation, though they also seem entirely incapable of understanding what needs to be done. A very senior officer of the 'Google' company recently suggested that our system has taken a wrong course and that we should move away from the so-called 'humanities' and put more emphasis on what I would see as being 'REAL' subjects. Sadly, he's been condemned by many who claim this is an unreasonable attack on our system but, in reality, see it as being an attack on their socialist approach to education, in which everyone is equal, everyone must pass and all must get a certificate; no one can be allowed to fail.
The socialist approach is obvious nonsense but has held sway, very strongly, for the last 30 or 40 years; today we are reaping the rewards of this lunacy, with more and more of our children leaving school with no useful education behind them. The 'Google' man has been 'poo-pooed' but I've also heard another suggestion that our abandonment of the idea of technical schools, and their follow on of technical colleges and polytechnics, was a mistake; apparently, the Germans have followed this system very successfully for years. We seem to have become wedded to the idea that university is the only way forward, with apprenticeships, and the like, not really given much support. This is such a mistake as to bring to mind the immortal words of Julia Roberts in 'Pretty Woman' : 'Mistake, Big mistake, HUGE !'
It is ridiculous to give so many children grade 'A's and these silly 'A*'s; it gives them an utterly false view of their abilities and gives them nothing to strive for. The imbecilic practice of giving them all 'predicted grades' before the exams is even worse, telling many that they're only worth a 'B' or 'C' and thus encouraging them to work only to such an end. Our education system is so broken as to be irreparable without a major overhaul; turning existing schools into 'Academies' isn't the answer, it's politicians playing around. What we need is a genuine 'root and branch' reform, but that would mean ditching decades of socialist clap-trap and reintroducing some genuine subjects and challenges for our children - challenges that some might fail, god help us. It would also mean employing people who really can teach and actually want to teach, instead of simply seeing it as a means to a payday, which would probably count out a large proportion of the existing teaching workforce. However, if the powers-that-be could actually realise that everyone is different and that the education system should be tailored to meet a variety of needs instead of having a 'one-size-fits-all' approach, we would all be better off. People have many different talents and abilities - some are academic, some practical and some empathic; why can't we have a system that develops the talents of all, equally ?
Some hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment