Open season on teenagers
Maybe this year you, like me, are waiting, in trepidation, for the A-level results of someone you care about. Maybe you’re waiting for your own results. Maybe no-one you know is getting their results this time, but on Thursday you might just take a sneaky peek at the course you did at uni a few years ago in the clearing listings to see what they’re asking for this year, feeling glad that you’re out of it all.
The bunfight is well underway, with people queueing up on all sides to bash young people - nothing new there then, every newspaper every day is bemoaning the state of today’s young people. But the difference with the annual lament about falling A-level standards that really winds me up is that they’re bashing young people WHO’VE JUST DONE WHAT THEY’RE FUCKING SUPPOSED TO DO, worked hard and got good grades. Who’d be 18 again? They can’t do anything right.
Clearly, though, there is crisis of confidence in A-levels and academic education in general. Plus, of course, there’s the fact that no-one talks about, far more shameful for a Labour government than so-called “grade inflation”, which is that 46% of young people leave school without the equivalent of 5 GCSEs - i.e. without the skills to get a good job, and we’ve only got three years left to get that down below 40% for the 2008 target. The system’s crying out for change. I think Mike Tomlinson may have some ideas on that, Ms Kelly.
Too right Antonia! My brother is getting his AS results tomorrow and it is so demoralising to see the right-whingers starting already.
Paul
http://www.readmyday.co.uk/blogs/paulleake
Couldn’t agree more. Practically *everybody* who works or is involved in further education disagrees that A-Levels are easier. Many of them argue that they’re now harder due to the fact that you’re examined throughout the two years instead of one final exam at the end of it.
The only people who say exams are getting easier are disgruntled critics who have absolutely no connection with FE whatsoever, and haven’t seen an exam paper in a good 20 years.
Everytime these people have said this to me, I’ve told them to prove it - take an A-Level exam using the open-college system. If it’s so easy these days, they should pass with flying colours.
I’ve had tonnes of people at work today say “ooh you’re waiting for your A’s aren’t you”, then proceed to trash the whole idea of A-levels. I’d have liked to invite a few of them to take A-level Psychology then tell me it’s a doss!
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Wonder what the person above said?
Lee has commented on this today: http://leegregory.typepad.com/lee_gregory/2005/08/the_annual_moan.html
The post above was spam - I don’t tend to remove comments I disagree with unless they’re abusive or really riculous in length.
I agree that all too often lazy journalists fall into the trap of just bashing achievement. But there are some serious questions here. There isn’t sufficient official differentiation between the top candidates (and the government don’t want more differentiation, because private school pupils tend to get the top A grades, according to reports).
Additionally, grade inflation is a serious problem when you start saying that 46% of children don’t leave with enough good GCSEs. How do you solve that problem? Obviously, you want the standards to improve. But if the standard required for a C grade is lower and lower (and 16% for OCR GCSE Maths) then what’s been achieved? Cosmetics to suit the purposes of spin.
Ken,
I’m not too exercised about differentiation at the top; by all means, if it will shut the Bristols and the Nottinghams and the doting mammas up, then publish individualised breakdowns or make them available to universities, or better still, make them interview all applicants, like Oxbridge does, and give them all a proper quota of state school students. In my anarchic moments, I do like Neil’s suggestion of allocating an Oxbridge place to every school in the country for their best pupil and sod the rest!
I would prefer, though, a baccalaureate-style system where young people have to continue a broader range of courses across arts and sciences disciplines, plus a dissertation and community service, to gain their top grade. This would also has the effect of making the school leaving age of 16 redundant - at the election, I was proud to stand on a platform of guaranteeing every young person a place at school, college, training or an apprenticeship.
Grade inflation is, I think, a conflation of a couple of issues, not least of which is the greater importance of qualifications nowadays, where unskilled jobs are pretty-much unavailable without GCSEs. I would argue that teaching is also vastly better. You also seem to be implying (apologies if you’re not) that I think the pass rates should be manipulated to meet the target - I emphatically don’t think that. I’d just like to see secondary schools that engaged our young people better, teaching a curriculum that feels worthwhile and relevant to their lives, in an environment where they are treated with respect.
Having said all that, and having been a staunch defender of the standards reached by A-level students for years, knowing how hard I worked for my own, I was shocked and taken aback to read a celebratory blog post by a friend, who achieved an A and two Bs and will go off to university shortly, throughout which “your” was substituted for “you’re” and “their” for “they’re”…