why is the British Education system so lack lustre in standards?

Question

...kids dont ever write examinations (except of course the Sats and GCSE's) and then people turn around and say even this is not fair because "they're only kids". In South Africa we have to write examinations every single year of our school lives, we develop the habit and our exams and university requirements are so rigorous that when I came to teach here it suprised me that some parents feel "they are only kids" and shouldnt be tested etc. Surely, school prepares them for the real world where they actually get asked questions or "tested" in the workplace...shouldnt the kids be prepared for working life? Funny that these "mere children" are the main perpetrators of crime in society, I come from crime-ridden south africa, but our criminals are generally marginilized people who seek to obtain basic necessities through crime, not excusable at all, but I think perhaps the British Education system (claiming its standards are "first world") could take a less lack lustre approach?

the 2nd answerer... i never once said EVERY teenager is a criminal...funny how you misconstrue my question when surely, it is plain English. YOu furthermore say you never needed to know about triangles as an adult, maybe not, but i guess you dont have kids or intend to have kids who might be interested in maths, or you simply dont care? Let's face it, most people in Britain speak one language, due to complacency, surely then, one'd imagine you'd master the art of spelling the one language you call your mothertongue. Just for your info, its my mothertongue too. It might help for you to realize my question centres around excellence and standards...

Answer 1

By British I hope you are referring to England and Wales. Northern Ireland has some of the highest academic standards and results in Europe and the highest in the UK. It's simply because in the 50/60's academic selection in all regions bar Northern Ireland was abolished and state comprehensives introduced which did not allow for extra teaching of those less able as well as not allowing more intelligent children to flourish.
There also seems to be a tendency in British schools to 'dumb down' lessons and material. I agree with you, homework, examinations and essays are some of the most important ways of improving academic ability for the 'real world' and of course univeristy. Other factors are important also of course such as time to do artistic things and sport. Something again which English comprehensives fail to notice.

It's simply history mixed with the belief the children should not be worked too hard at school as they may get depressed, they fail to see that if the child falls through the education system as a failure in exams and coursework they will very likely get poorly paid jobs, be unemployed and become depressed as a result. As you suggest they will become marginalised in a society that moves on without them and many may resort to crime and addiction.

The education system in England is a shambles at the minute, hence why grammar and excellent state schools are in massive demand.

Answer 2

Are you basing this on one school?

You haven't given too much information on that so I have to make a huge asumption here, you have comefrom South Africa and you are working in London through an agency - sorry I know that could be totally wrong.

If so you will be working in 'sink schools' the 15% the government is really worried about.

Yes some parents feel that way, they tend to be parents who didn't achieve in school.

Which south african schools are you basing your comparison on? Yes there are very good schools but I'm sure there are some not so good.

In the 1980's literecy rates were only 50% for the majority of South Africans (ie the black population) and this legacy must still be felt in education.

South Africa's Institute of Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) found that 80% of schools provided education "of such poor quality that they constitute a very significant obstacle to social and economic development".

If you are going to compare educational attainment compare schools in similar areas, with similar numbers of disadvantaged children.

Comparing results in soweto schools to those in inner city Britain you may find the British Education System is not so lackluster.

Answer 3

I have been teaching at a British school for two years. I was shocked at the standards of education there. For example students doing assignments for the GCSE now have to do it in the classroom because they where downloading it from the Internet, the issue of plagiarism so bad. Another problem the Department of Education put pressure on schools to do well at the end of the year. That is for all GCSE grades plus As levels results. The EEC report in 2006 stated that the Netherlands had the highest standards of education. Ireland was second. But the shocking results were the UK came seventy in the report. It stated that (1) UK schools fall behind in students learning a foreign language compare to other EU countries.

Answer 4

It hasn't. Having worked with SA graduates, I have found gaps in their knowledge, too. I have found that discipline was high, but there was too much of a reliance on 'rote learning'- knowing lots and lots of facts without any deep individual knowledge. This comes to the fore when some train to be teachers in the UK and find it hard to teach understanding- they are fantastic and skills and facts. Every nation, therefore, has weaknesses in their educational style. In a notable minority of these students, emotional intellegence is also weak (relying on very set 'status rule'- young must bend to old, for example, and becoming personal/angry when these are challenged, using sarcasm).

I don't know where you work, but my (inner city) school runs written exams in every subject every year. The UK has more compulsory written testing for under 16s than every other country in the work, excluding Japan, China and Russia.

We also NEVER came 70th for any poll of education. In a poll of demographically similar countries, we in fact came 5th out of 35; a good, if not outstanding, result. We were above the USA (been there ... very 'sink or swim' ... the bright do well, the less able drop out and are ignored) and South Africa.

Answer 5

I think that the British education system is fine as it is. If you want to prepare kids for the real world then perhaps we should do away with technical drawing / mathematics and teach everyone actual job skills such as plumbing / managerial skills and a course on retail.

I did 2 years in the USA in Houston at age 10/11 and found that there was so much pressure on pupils. My school day started at 8:30 and finished at 4. By the time I got home I then had 2 hours of homework every night. I used to fall alseep at my books. Yes I was ahead when I came back to the UK but I was so exhausted from all that schoolwork that I had no time to do anything else and was stressed by it all. I don't think its worth it as when you're a child you need time to "be a child". It's such a fleeting time in our lives, we should treasure it.

I can't think of a single occurrence in the "real world" where I have had to work out the length of the side of a triangle.

I disagree that everyone who went through the British education system is a criminal. I assume you are referring to State schools and not private schools. A lot of these are of very high standards.

Children have to sit 11+ examinations at age 11 and are tested far more than they were in my day. I went to a state school in Scotland and have never committed a crime in my life.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Most systems outside of the US are very laxed in terms of standards. I am ignorant of South Africa so I won't speak of it, but I have had friends from all over Europe and Asia who seem to have easy curriculum's by comparison to what I had to go through in the US. One difference is that the exams are easier in the US but this makes sense because the majority of your work consists of what you do in terms of homework, projects, and papers throughout the Length of the semester, and if you do this work properly, regurgitating it on the final exam should not be difficult. This is so true. Every night of school I had homework, but more horribly, a skew of projects and papers in multiple subjects that were due any given time among 5 or 6 classes that were being taken. It was rigorous to say the least. Then I studied one year in Germany and one year in Japan. In regards to assignments it was easier, but no having constant work to focus on throughout the semester made it harder to be prepared for the exam. Things are learned through repetition. I'm not sure the European method of thinking that if you pass a big exam you will retain the information is very practical. I feel my time spent in the US made me actually learn and retain the stuff.

Answer 8

Tests orientate the mind towards time focused results based on established factoids. Factoids and application thereof place reliance largely on authoritative sources. Academic material is quickly disseminated and a common language of the subject matter is established through acceptable application of memory mechanics. Authoritative sources reinforced with maturation of memory mechanics, without further temperance, evolve into doctrines that are easily adapted by pragmatists and dogmatists.

At the behest of leading bodies of institutes and governments, academia whose labour shortage compounded by time constraints, are required to meet a quantum pegged against various performance indicators. The underlying driver is a sense of urgency whose means-end is to provide food, housing and clothes.

England has breadth and depth of a larger pool of wealth, regardless real or perceived. The divergence is a privilege that is used to encourage children to early discovery of themselves and the environment around them.

“Folk myth” used in referring to popular beliefs, a countenance that relieves children of the inevitable burdensome adult working life that the accumulation of found memories of youthfulness and freedom should go un-denied, distinct to the experience of their elders.

If one may be allowed to digress, the generations who experienced post war poverty, Japan’s and Germany’s experiences were more brutal but shorter lived. The effects of post colonial rule with its associations of loss of wealth are far reaching beyond the comprehension of most observers. Not withstanding legislature of C19 utilitarianism, the spirit and ideology of John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, has in no small part influenced future generations. (This instance, on how their offspring should be treated.)

Without precedence of traditional knowledge dissemination methods, the provision of a social experiment enlightened in part by the Renaissance and supported by trail and errors of reasoning, monitored by various experts like behavioural psychologists, remains very much an on-going process. To provide further illumination, other principal elements of education can be gleaned from Adam Smith, a starting point as good as any. (1)

Where means testing and the like are performed, traditional methods tend to yield a surer, not necessarily better, larger body of individual results within the collective. A casual verification of a class of say, 35 students is likely to show different bodies of averages.

Explorative approaches, susceptible to greater subjectivity and forcefulness in guidance, direction, and diligence of the instructor, would naturally yield a greater variation, as would laboratory tests on similar experiments, give rise to equally varied results due to the inherent nature of elements and the environment.

GCSE’s, A-levels, and their equivalents, are traditional tools used to define standards and delineate ability based on one-off instances, as opposed to a test averages painting a fuller, if not whole picture. The disparity between the two methods are obvious.

Treading the fine line of how much to let go, guidance by subtle inference, inspiration and so on, in balance with a desired minimum competence of a common language in relation to the subject matter remains non-formulaic and elusive. (Surprisingly, instruction plays a larger role in the later method over the former.)

A further digression: South Africa, as with many other countries, in it’s adoption of traditional information dissemination, will come a point where no further gains are reaped beyond the perceived basic requirements that has served well its own community. Japan, a leader in traditional learning, did well initially. That was until products of advanced industry that were thrice as dependable and robust to the European equivalent, suffered lack of desirability (barring xenophobic, race reactionaries and trade protection), but that is another story.

In the mean time, one can only sympathize with a change of environment (from S.A. to England) by understanding the present environment, before knowing required adjustive measures before appling them carte blanche; with in depth understanding, comes solutions and resolutions.

It is encouraging that one voices frustrations from good intent.

For your kind consideration, contributing to reforms (V) starting as incubators, may have sweeping changes to national education (the 15%).

To say the least, making positive change is one of many undisputed noble aims of teachers who make the extra mile, tough as the present circumstances are.

Much understanding and sympathy goes to out all teachers. May intelligent peserverance and godsped guide you.