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Not much hope for the rest of the world then given that in the UK (Wiki: In terms of global poverty criteria, the United Kingdom is a wealthy country, with virt

• keithpeter 12y ago
  "...one third of kids fail to achieve a C grade in a very undemanding exam (GCSE) at least compared to its predecessors 'O-level/GCE'." Might be worth pointing out that the GCE O level was only taken by around 30% to 60% of population depending on the policy of the Local Education Authority in which the child lived, the other half (roughly) took the CSE (Certificate of Secondary Education). A grade 1 CSE certificate was regarded as of a similar standard to a pass at GCE O level. So the figures were not that far away from one third not achieving a pass in the good old days when you think about it. These exams were/are taken at age 16. It might also be worth pointing out that the change from GCE O level/CSE to GCSE took place in 1984. Therefore anyone under the age of (rougly) 47 would have taken GCSEs, and then if academically inclined, would have progressed to GCE A levels, which have remained the main public exam taken at 18 for University entrance. We seem to be managing OKish despite continuous negative commentary on the education system. GCSEs themselves have changed significantly over the years (pre-National Curriculum, first 14-target NC then various reconfigurations of the NC based on subject after that, then the 2010 and 2012 changes, and now, in England, the 2017 changes). The UK PISA scores are (currently) bang on the average for OECD nations, and a point or so higher than France in Mathematics and the national language. I'd invite all here to have a look at the PISA sample test questions for Maths, their format and content might surprise you. At present, I think that the experience in the UK seems to support the thesis in the OA that socio-economic factors are quite significant in educational achievement in the sense that poor (depending on your definition of poor) children don't do especially well on average. I shall dig around a bit more about this whole historical data thing as I feel an essay coming on...
• Brakenshire 12y ago
  Britain is still a class-bound society, with the basic unstated idea that a small percentage of the population will run things, and fill the high-skill jobs, especially those jobs which require academic excellence, and the rest are there for call centres, trades work, and manual labour. The reason why it's so difficult to get a lot of kids to pay attention at school is because they're well aware that they won't need trigonometry or literary analysis in the job that they're going to end up doing. Although they may well find that they do need the grades. It's not so much poverty as a direct cause, but rather a culture which acts across all levels of society which is secondary to widespread poverty and what was in the past a basic economic reality of the need for a very large industrial and manual workforce. That cultural assumption (that a large percentage of the population can only ever do that kind of work) is now wrong, because of automation and globalization, but it has its own momentum, and an inertia which gives it a continued reality for someone living in amongst it and trying to make their way.
  • pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    >especially those jobs which require academic excellence // Let's be clear, most jobs don't require "academic excellence" they require abilities pertinent to the job. Primarily a first degree demonstrates intellectual capacity, motivation, and focus. Some positions require a particular academic attainment but it's a first-pass filter for demonstrating one has the capability to acquire and apply domain knowledge. For example chemical engineers can have a first class honours degree but no knowledge of the financial world, their degree demonstrates they have the analytic abilities and mental capacities that make them valuable in the financial world. >The reason why it's so difficult to get a lot of kids to pay attention at school is because they're well aware that they won't need trigonometry or literary analysis in the job that they're going to end up doing. // I don't believe it's that at all. I don't believe that most children have an idea what they will do for work until late in to their adolescence - beyond when they'll have first come across trig and way beyond when they start literary analysis (which basically starts when you start reading books for yourself). How many athletes have to do a press-up [push-ups] in their career? Yet kids don't say "I want to be a football player I'm not doing press-ups". IMO those same kids will be more than happy learning to make stuff out of wood, or learning about drawing, or learning to grow plants, or learning to make clothing despite not knowing if those skills will feature in their careers later. We treat all children as if they're academically inclined and I thing this is entirely wrong - yes basic literacy and numeracy are important. Yes the more academic subjects should be open to all those who wish to follow them. But also, those who don't want to sit and do book-work all day should have educational options too. OT: Britain is always going to be a classed society with a monarchy.
• xioxox 12y ago
  Could you explain why some people failing to get a C grade should be a problem? One of the reasons to have an exam is to allow employers and universities to differentiate better and worse students. There is always going to be a range in ability, so this in itself is no problem, as long as a C grade doesn't mean the student is terrible. In some courses it is common to divide the students using percentiles and to arbitrarily assign grades.
  • jdietrich 12y ago
    Earning five GCSEs at grade C or better is an extremely low threshold, roughly equivalent in difficulty to passing the GED. The exams are not graded on a curve but are competency-based, so falling short of that standard does indeed mean that the student is terrible. Young people without those grades are more than twice as likely to be unemployed, and have very limited opportunities for further education or training.
  • learnstats2 12y ago
    A C grade at GCSE mathematics is usually considered a minimal passing grade. Typically, a student who can interpret and answer simple ratio and proportion questions will reach a C grade. I would expect a student who scores lower than a C grade to have some significant difficulty in answering this type of question: "Here is an ingredient list for 2 cakes; write an ingredient list for 5 cakes." As you might understand, students below this level are excluded from almost every skilled career. In my experience, there are very few students who are intellectually incapable of reaching this level, but there are many (37% of all students in the UK) who don't reach this level because they don't have appropriate educational opportunities. Universal access to good education is not a solved problem.
  • DanBC 12y ago
    Some children have the capability to pass a GCSE at grade C or higher, but fail to do so because eg they are child carers for disabled parents or because they had a terrible teacher or etc. Those children are being failed. The numbers of children who cannot (not just do not) attain grade C in English and math are a rough proxy for rates of innumeracy and illiteracy. The UK has worryingly high levels of innumeracy and illiteracy. Here's the English national curriculum. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculu... Here's the maths national curriculum. Key stages 3 and 4 cover the GCSE exam. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-mathematics-programmes-of-study https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curricul... This sounds reasonable for 16 year old children, but don't forget that this work covers clever children who will easily achieve A. You can get a rough idea of what a grade C means by comparing it to the new numerical grading system to be introduced in 2017. In that system grades range from 1 (low) to 9 (best) (with U still meaning failed). A 4 is expected to be equivalent to a current C. http://www.aqa.org.uk/supporting-education/policy/gcse-and-a-level-changes/structure-of-new-gcses/explaining-new-gcse-grades-transcript http://www.aqa.org.uk/supporting-education/policy/gcse-and-a... > But there are a couple of indicators to help us with this matching. Firstly, a grade four is going to be set at the level of a current grade C. What this means practically is that the same proportion of students who would achieve at least a grade C now will achieve at least a grade four under the new system. We also understand that a grade seven is going to be set at the level of the current A. That means we’ve now got grades four, five, and six to cover C and B… and grade seven, eight and nine to cover A and A. And if we look a bit more at this very top level – where three grades now allow for greater differentiation – we might expect the top half of the current A* students to achieve a nine grade in the new world. It's great that there is more differentiation between very high attaining students but it's a pretty low bar.