Why Is Our Education System Failing Us?

[Pmr Man]

to me (at state school) i'm on my GCSE course and i'm in year 10; it seems to me that teachers have got so much to do they are just spoonfeeeding all information to do with exams and thats it. of course there are exceptions in this. an example of this is if i ask a question in science. now i'm quite an inquisitive person and am hungry to learn if i find the subject interesting. now if i ask a related question which will help my understanding but will not help my exam directly i will usually get an answer like "you'll learn it in A levels" or " you don't need to know it" of course there are exception to this and it varies from teacher to teacher. this is a long shot and i am NOT proposing this but do you thing physical pnishments like caning or whatever it was added respect to teachers (and fear). nowadays or people who muck about just get, well not much. by the way this is from my experience so you can argue against it.

 

[snax]

Although I struggled to comprehend a lot of your post I sympathise that exams are stressful. I am of an opinion that they are not necessarily the best benchmark of achievement and that coursework or vocational qualifications may well be a more fair system. Some excel in exams, but for most its a hard and stressful process, a process that bears little resemble to the workplace.

However, don't for one minute think that it is any harder for you or your generation than it was for anyone else, we all, to a degree, had to go through the process of revision, mocks, revision and exams at your age.

onasilverbike:

Yeah, me and alot of my year agree that it should be mostly if not all coursework and a small exam at the end. In my opinion i dont think getting that slip with your grades on knowing your final grade, is a feeling of success. When i opened mine up i was dissapointed and it made me think, ok i need to work harder for when i resit this exam.

I know,around 20 years ago you needed to get 80% of your gcse paper correct to get a C, and now its 65% :S? to get a C and the questions are alot easier, we sat a 20 year old gcse paper and a modern one in my school.

I also agree that schools put so much pressure on every student from year 9-11 to get a A*- C grade. My school got funding for a new building for "better" facilities, and it simply hasnt got anything unique or good about this place, apart from a elevatar which may i add you cant even use. This money should and could of gone to better and needed places. One of my teachers was telling why they stress so much about the grades is because the school gets better funding, thus getting better teaches to get those grades and better text books etc. However i still wouldnt mind 10 grade A*-C's on my OCR card .

 

[Mario]

As far as I am aware a uni's main source of income is from research ventures, students are just an excuse for them to keep going, and to feed them the odd new researcher

Saying that, I do agree with you, and I think the higher education system is broken

Hell, the only reason I decided to go to Uni was because of the perception employers have that a degree = needed to do the job (or maybe that is actually my perception)

I am a firm beliver that it is the way a person applies themselves to a particular job that makes them successful or not

I think you should only go to uni if you deserve to. If you are in that top 10% of academically gifted people. And they should be fully funded to attend university

So what if you come from a difficult background? If you haven't got the brains you don't deserve to go to uni. So many jobs would be better served with vocational based learning opposed to strictly academic based learning. Many of those disenchanted kids who are failing in the current system really benefit from vocational based learning. They find out about the real world and how it works and it makes them realise that they have to actually make something of themselves.

I understand there is a place for Uni, dont get me wrong - I think there are many benefits of it, but I also think there is a lot of room for the slack to be cut, the system redesigned, and more emphasis placed on skills.

Under the current system, employers should not place so much value on a degree (even though for practicalities sake, when recruiting, it may make sense to them as a first stage filter)

I also believe there is a place for uni. I dont believe there is a place for the 50 odd instutions we have that are universities. I think that money spent on the current higher education system would be better served if it were used to fund people into apprenticeships etc. Manufacturing used to be a massive part of this country's skll base and plenty of good jobs were lost because the tory government (from my limited understanding) decided that they wanted to go with a service based industry (i.e. banking)

 

[Kat]

I remember asking my teachers at school "yea but why does it do that or why does that happen" and often the response was "becuase it is and thats all you need to know to pass your exams."

Sorry to be a pain about this, but there is a reason behind that.

It'd because teachers can't and won't teach you higher level knowledge than what you need to know, that just confuses students.

First day of A level chemistry the first thing said was 'forget most of last year', they're told not to teach in any more detail than required.

I also think that university can be just as much 'character building' or whatever you want to call it, as about getting a job, whether you want to believe it or not, university is about having some fun too, it's marketed that way and therefore attracts people other than those that got A* through and through. In a way we do pay for it, yes it's funded for now, but we pay it back, the money isn't free.

 

[spangley_special]

the money isn't free.

...unless you're Scottish

...or an EU citizen who isn't english studying in Scotland

 

[chuckwood]

Another reason it is failing-what the hell is this guy on about?
http://www.p8ntballer-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=119029

 

[onasilverbike]

Sorry to be a pain about this, but there is a reason behind that.

It'd because teachers can't and won't teach you higher level knowledge than what you need to know, that just confuses students.

First day of A level chemistry the first thing said was 'forget most of last year', they're told not to teach in any more detail than required.

I also think that university can be just as much 'character building' or whatever you want to call it, as about getting a job, whether you want to believe it or not, university is about having some fun too, it's marketed that way and therefore attracts people other than those that got A* through and through. In a way we do pay for it, yes it's funded for now, but we pay it back, the money isn't free.

Kat, thanks for being the first of the current "Uni Crew" to add to this debate. I suspect that you are fairly bright, worked hard at school, and deserve your place at an establishment of higher learning. IIRC you are also doing a science based course. However, your statement about fun is, IMHO, part of the issue. It is the "went to uni for fun" students that come out the other side with a second class degree in bull****, still lacking the ability to comunicate clearly in the written format of their mother tounge. On top of that, they expect better job prospects because they spent three years partying and scraped through their finals!

 

[burnzy1989]

(Sorry for my spelling i cant find my dictionary it is usualy sitting next to me ) ok my spelling is not good and i admit to that, I have always strugled with it . But the way modern life is going you cant help with the text speak , mobile phones dont help because of people who text you with short text e.g 2mra = tomorow , so it just becomes the normale way of comunication of the world today.

I think that schooling is not done properly i was in a class full of people who just wanted to mess about and not learn anything, but teachers do not have disaplin over them , i remember some one saying "what are you going to do , you cant do nothing because i will sue (soo) if you do anything , so in a nut shell it is the kids ruling over the teachers with no respect and no fear of disaplin.

Universaty is something i am considdering but i feal that my English is not very good as you can see so it has put a dampener on my confidence, i am good at motor vehicle and for me to progress to a high standerd i need to go to Universaty but it is going to cost unless i move to Scotland where it is free. So you should not judge people on their gradeing as i only got a D in English but as i said i am better working with my hands than working in an office.

 

[Kat]

Kat, thanks for being the first of the current "Uni Crew" to add to this debate. I suspect that you are fairly bright, worked hard at school, and deserve your place at an establishment of higher learning. IIRC you are also doing a science based course. However, your statement about fun is, IMHO, part of the issue. It is the "went to uni for fun" students that come out the other side with a second class degree in bull****, still lacking the ability to comunicate clearly in the written format of their mother tounge. On top of that, they expect better job prospects because they spent three years partying and scraped through their finals!

I thought uni in Scotland was free only if you lived there for at least a year?
I should move 5 minutes north!

As for me, I breezed my GCSE's and then completely flunked my first lot of A levels, re-sat everything and realised it took a hell of a lot more work at A level then GCSE. Came out with ABC which got me into Leeds when really it shouldn't have since they wanted BBB and I'm doing biomedical science, hell it depends what people count as doss degree's because people count my degree as doss sometimes since it isn't pure, hence possibly moving to neuroscience to actually improve my job prospects...

I do see that bad communication is an issue, but I don't think it's the schools, it's lazy people, I cn tlk in txt speak if i cba with typin or I can write normally if I'm typing a CV? I genuinely think that text language will become common place soon as is the development of the English Language, however I don't think that it will ever be standard as it can't be regulated as with regional and social dialect.

Yeah, I can see the issue, but as a lot of jobs DO ask for someone to be educated to university level they must expect people to take doss courses in order to get to jobs they otherwise wouldn't have, if a job only asked for a degree, no specification I don't think I'd do Chemistry if i could get away with doing playstationology

 

[TEKLOFTY]

Kat, thanks for being the first of the current "Uni Crew" to add to this debate. I suspect that you are fairly bright, worked hard at school, and deserve your place at an establishment of higher learning. IIRC you are also doing a science based course. However, your statement about fun is, IMHO, part of the issue. It is the "went to uni for fun" students that come out the other side with a second class degree in bull****, still lacking the ability to comunicate clearly in the written format of their mother tounge. On top of that, they expect better job prospects because they spent three years partying and scraped through their finals!

I go to uni for fun, and a relatively good one too; if it wasn't, I wouldn't go.