This govt DO NOT fund elite music in the same way they do elite sport.
I know, because Shiney Jnr is an elite musician and any funds he could receive are means tested - meaning he gets..... SFA.
Bravo Wat! If the Olympics were scored in the same way as GCSEs then every athlete would get a Gold medal under the A* system, and every spectatator would get a silver.
The only sensible way to separate all the A & A* awards is to make them harder. There is a precedent. It's called an "O" level. When GCSEs were introduced back in the 70s, a A grade was reckoned to be the equivalent of an O pass (set at about 45/100).
You had to be special to get an A grade. Only about 5% of the candidates got one. Isn't that an Olympic ideal? Can you imagine Usain Bolt getting the same colour medal as all the other athletes? Do you think he would have put himself out and actually tried?
Is this the reason why our boys lag behind the girls? There's no incentive to try harder.
Actually GCSEs were introduced in 1988 as I was in the last year of pupils to do O levels in 1987 aged 16. I was at a private school, and I remember the pass rate soared from the last year of O levels to the new GCSEs.
Note no-one talks about "pass rates" anymore. I suppose that's too "judgemental". Wouldn't want any of the little darlings to think that they are not genii would we?
I find comparing New Labour to Cromwell offensive. Cromwell defeated a tyrant Labour is .....
Where does Lord A get the absurd idea that the pool of academic talent is not limited? He must live in a dream world, we all have our limitations yet he seems not to understand that. Fellowships of All Souls all round, I'll have a large gin with mine.
I really do take issue with you about the state of the education system.
Any system that can teach a checkout assistant to add 10p + 10p with a calculator can't be all bad .... after all, she got the right answer !
Alan Douglas
I think that this misses the point as does Adonis.
It is quite possible to intelligently disagree about whether exams should aim to 'rank' candidates or simply to test levels of attainment.
The argument against the former is simply that the educational problem in this country has never been the attainment levels of the top 10% or so - it has been about the attainment levels of the bottom 50%, which have traditionally been very poor.
Personally, I favour a hybrid between the system we used to have where only a certain % of candidates could get each grade and the current system that is supposedly meant to measure against an absolute standard. So perhaps just the top 10% could get grade A and the rest of the grades could be awarded on the basis of achieving a certain standard?
But I digress. The real point, regardless of the grading system and regardless of grade inflation, is the level of attainment of most people. It is possible to have grade inflation AND for levels of attainment to have risen at the same time. The problem with Adonis and this New Labour lot is that they claim that higher grades are automatically indicative of rising standards even though independent reports point to rampant grade inflation, schools switching to soft subjects and diplomas and concentrating mainly on pupils just below C grade standard (and to hell with those less able) in order to artificially boost GCSE results. We just can't tell whether standards have risen or fallen. I suspect that there has been little change overall, but that the curriculum straightjacket has introduced an unfortunate uniformity of thought.
Neither do I think that professional exams always get it right - they are often used by closed shop professions to artificially restrict the number of entrants in order to preserve the earnings premium of existing members. Accountancy exams are a good example. You hardly need to be a genius to be a perfectly adequate accountant.
Well, Wat. A post about education, huh? Were I you, I would check my numbers here carefully, very carefully. I would hate to look silly by getting my sums wrong, failing to be able to subtract 2.4% from 65.7% correctly. Oh yes. ;o)
HJ-
"It is possible to have grade inflation AND for levels of attainment to have risen at the same time."
Yes it is.
As you say, we actually have no idea whether real standards have risen or fallen. But we do know from independent tests (and I suggest, our own observation) that grade for grade, the official exams have got easier.
As for professional exams, yes they can easily be self-serving. But they are useful markers of at least basic competence - leaving staff/supplier selection entirely to the market and word of mouth does make it incredibly time consuming and difficult (eg we're currently in the process of hiring an architect to work on an extension... do we need a RIBA architect? Do we really need to pay 10-15% of the contract value? We're not building Versailles. But if we trade down to a "architectural technician", they don't seem to need any qualifications, so what assurances do we have he knows his RSJs from his pre-stressed trusses? Recommendation? Yes, we've done that, but consistent info is sparce. Etc etc)
Kryptikmo
"A post about education, huh? Were I you, I would check my numbers here carefully, very carefully. I would hate to look silly by getting my sums wrong, failing to be able to subtract 2.4% from 65.7% correctly."
Whoops.
That really does betray a lack of scholarship (as my old History master once said of my spelling)
Now corrected.
Slightly O/T, what percentage of the population need a university degree? My generous estimate is about 1%. The oldest universities grew out of monastic communities and did not have undergraduates in the sense of novitiates who b*ggered off once they had got their diploma - you joined the community for life. The purpose of universities is to recruit and train the next generation of academics, nothing more.
Professional training in law, insurance, engineering is mainly learned on site. There is no reason in principle why the theoretical framework cannot be learned on day release or at night school. David Livingstone, no loss, qualified as a doctor through night school.
All right, I've got an axe to grind. I hate bloody students. Even when I was one, I hated bloody students. The cant, the pretention, the false values, the laziness, the sanctimony, the scruffiness… the list is never-ending and don't even get me started on the tadpole members of the political class.
All right, maybe Tian-an men Square was a bit draconian but remember, those bloody students were told to p/ss off - twice.
Alberich,
I would suggest that the academic rigour required for engineering can't be acquired 'on the job' or on day release. Law - I'd largely agree with you and in the past many entrants to law just became articled clerks and learned on the job. Insurance doesn't require a degree now, although mathematicians often become actuaries.
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