agent69
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Post by agent69 on Aug 16, 2023 22:06:07 GMT
I see results are due out tomorrow, with predictions that pass rates will fall dramatically (due to students having to sit exams, rather than being assessed by their teachers in covid times). In a seperate article, universities are reporting that students that were accepted over the last couple of years with assessed grades are dropping out in record numbers.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Aug 17, 2023 8:19:03 GMT
I see results are due out tomorrow, with predictions that pass rates will fall dramatically (due to students having to sit exams, rather than being assessed by their teachers in covid times). In a seperate article, universities are reporting that students that were accepted over the last couple of years with assessed grades are dropping out in record numbers. Its not just top universities either, son of a friend just couldn't cope with the standard of work required at university and told his parents that the University marking was terrible as he got pulled up for grammar, punctuation and spelling, wheras he was told at school it was ideas that counted not how you expressed it.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Aug 17, 2023 8:24:48 GMT
I see results are due out tomorrow, with predictions that pass rates will fall dramatically (due to students having to sit exams, rather than being assessed by their teachers in covid times). In a seperate article, universities are reporting that students that were accepted over the last couple of years with assessed grades are dropping out in record numbers. I thought they were increasing the min % for A* and A (possibly lower grades too) to be more in line with the grading for 2019. But not having sat 'real' important exams before is a bit of a disadvantage as well.
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Aug 17, 2023 8:49:37 GMT
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Aug 17, 2023 9:11:34 GMT
I know that I will get shouted at again.
But when I was at school < 25% of kids went to Grammar School. of those < 40% went on to sixth form and A levels ( including a few who transferred in from other schools) then probably 30% went on to university.
so you take 100 Kids, 25 go to Grammar School, sixth form 10, university 3 so 3% went to university ( now of course this may have been different in the affluent South )
now nearly 50% of all kids go to university, so are not telling me that kids are far cleverer now than then.
Knowing a couple of teachers, I know they came under a lot of pressure to show that the kids weren't disadvantaged during COVID, and had done at least as well as before.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Aug 17, 2023 9:16:51 GMT
I know that I will get shouted at again. But when I was at school < 25% of kids went to Grammar School. of those < 40% went on to sixth form and A levels ( including a few who transferred in from other schools) then probably 30% went on to university. so you take 100 Kids, 25 go to Grammar School, sixth form 10, university 3 so 3% went to university ( now of course this may have been different in the affluent South ) now nearly 50% of all kids go to university, so are not telling me that kids are far cleverer now than then. Knowing a couple of teachers, I know they came under a lot of pressure to show that the kids weren't disadvantaged during COVID, and had done at least as well as before. In my junior school year 3 out of 40 went to Grammar and of my Grammar cohort about 10% went to Uni. That was the not so affluent south.
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Post by bernythedolt on Aug 17, 2023 10:01:17 GMT
I know that I will get shouted at again. But when I was at school < 25% of kids went to Grammar School. of those < 40% went on to sixth form and A levels ( including a few who transferred in from other schools) then probably 30% went on to university. so you take 100 Kids, 25 go to Grammar School, sixth form 10, university 3 so 3% went to university ( now of course this may have been different in the affluent South ) now nearly 50% of all kids go to university, so are not telling me that kids are far cleverer now than then. Knowing a couple of teachers, I know they came under a lot of pressure to show that the kids weren't disadvantaged during COVID, and had done at least as well as before. Presumably some of the 75 non-Grammar kids also went on to university, so the 3% figure may be an underestimate, but I agree. We've done our kids a disservice, setting unrealistic goals for so many by pretending they are of university calibre. We're just saddling them with a load of debt and nothing useful to show for it.
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Aug 17, 2023 10:20:10 GMT
We've done our kids a disservice, setting unrealistic goals for so many by pretending they are of university calibre. We're just saddling them with a load of debt and nothing useful to show for it. May be the UK is the outlier? Parents in the UK don’t provide enough financial support for their children going to uni and students are loaded with debt? Graduates in other countries don’t have the same level of level compared to the UK?
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Aug 17, 2023 10:30:51 GMT
We've done our kids a disservice, setting unrealistic goals for so many by pretending they are of university calibre. We're just saddling them with a load of debt and nothing useful to show for it. May be the UK is the outlier? Parents in the UK don’t provide enough financial support for their children going to uni and students are loaded with debt? Graduates in other countries don’t have the same level of level compared to the UK? Perhaps because in the US and other countries parents and grandparents start a university / College fund when a child is born. IMHO many don't do it here because they were so used to grants that it's not viewed as something to do. Also because they can continue to attend despite running up debt it is viewed as their debt not something the parents and grandparents should be helping with.
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Aug 17, 2023 10:48:18 GMT
When I went to college in the 70's there were a few malingerers who took the government grant as an aid to avoiding having to start work for 3 or 4 years. You would have thought that the prospect of running up a large student debt would focus the mind in deciding whether they realy wanted to continue in further education. Alas, that appears not to be the case.
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Post by bracknellboy on Aug 17, 2023 11:00:18 GMT
I know that I will get shouted at again.
But when I was at school < 25% of kids went to Grammar School. of those < 40% went on to sixth form and A levels ( including a few who transferred in from other schools) then probably 30% went on to university.
so you take 100 Kids, 25 go to Grammar School, sixth form 10, university 3 so 3% went to university ( now of course this may have been different in the affluent South )now nearly 50% of all kids go to university, so are not telling me that kids are far cleverer now than then. Knowing a couple of teachers, I know they came under a lot of pressure to show that the kids weren't disadvantaged during COVID, and had done at least as well as before. The problem with the first part of your analysis - when used as a benchmark to measure today - is that it works on a presumption that the number of kids going to grammar schools was entirely reflective of the number of kids that were capable of that level of achievement. That is a fundamentally false premise. You didn't go to grammar school because you came up to some universal benchmark of ability, you went because you fell into the top X percentile for that year which represented the cut off point for the number of places AVAILABLE at grammar school. The system had a fundamental constraint in the form of the number of grammar school places that were funded. [Without even without adding that the measurement was based on a single exam]. I am not by the way saying that the current situation of 50% of people going to "university" is sensible, for them or society: that is a different matter but is an entrely separate assessment which should be made in its own right.
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james100
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Post by james100 on Aug 17, 2023 11:37:46 GMT
I feel so sorry for kids today. Tuition fees, no grants, expectation to go to uni or you're perceived as thick even if it's a mickey mouse subject / institution. So much pressure to participate in a system which most definitely does not benefit all students or fit with society's needs. I wish polytechnics had never been "upgraded" to "downgraded" universities and that there was a decent apprenticeship pathway for trades and technical specialisms. So many lessons could have been learned from countries like Germany that have these alternative higher educational solutions which don't place such class-type judgements on qualifications. Grade inflation has been ludicrous well before Covid hit and helped nobody at all except for the prevailing government. We have illiterate graduates who can't do basic maths and think they're great with their "top grades" and 60K in the red at age 21. It's pretty sad. If I had my time again I'm not even sure I'd want to go to university. And the fact that so many students aren't even graduating this year due to marking strikes...the injustice of that just blows my mind.
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Aug 17, 2023 15:14:01 GMT
Well, universities do offer financial support for full time students, some bursary are paid up to £5k per year and students don't have to pay back. Every little helps.
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Aug 17, 2023 16:57:00 GMT
I know that I will get shouted at again. But when I was at school < 25% of kids went to Grammar School. of those < 40% went on to sixth form and A levels ( including a few who transferred in from other schools) then probably 30% went on to university. so you take 100 Kids, 25 go to Grammar School, sixth form 10, university 3 so 3% went to university ( now of course this may have been different in the affluent South ) now nearly 50% of all kids go to university, so are not telling me that kids are far cleverer now than then. Knowing a couple of teachers, I know they came under a lot of pressure to show that the kids weren't disadvantaged during COVID, and had done at least as well as before. Presumably some of the 75 non-Grammar kids also went on to university, so the 3% figure may be an underestimate, but I agree. We've done our kids a disservice, setting unrealistic goals for so many by pretending they are of university calibre. We're just saddling them with a load of debt and nothing useful to show for it. I think I generally agree with you and Keith on this. BUT a phrases like "university calibre" or "Oxbridge material" probably aren't best advised. I think we should have high quality apprenticeships and before that high quality vocational teaching at school. Those who pass and become heating engineers, mechanical engineers etc should be given the same amount of respect as someone studying PP at Oxford for example. I also think of those going to Uni, only a tiny minority should be doing particular arts subjects where there is no obvious career path - only the very, very brightest should be doing that. More places for Medicine/Denistry and others where the career is clear.
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Post by bracknellboy on Aug 17, 2023 18:11:54 GMT
I know that I will get shouted at again. But when I was at school < 25% of kids went to Grammar School. of those < 40% went on to sixth form and A levels ( including a few who transferred in from other schools) then probably 30% went on to university. so you take 100 Kids, 25 go to Grammar School, sixth form 10, university 3 so 3% went to university ( now of course this may have been different in the affluent South ) now nearly 50% of all kids go to university, so are not telling me that kids are far cleverer now than then. Knowing a couple of teachers, I know they came under a lot of pressure to show that the kids weren't disadvantaged during COVID, and had done at least as well as before. so the 3% figure may be an underestimate, but I agree. I'm not sure how, other than as later mature students. If you failed your eleven plus, you went to a secondary modern. If you were fortunate enough to go on to further education, it would have been to do technical / vocational education and qualifications. For the vast vast majority, once you were "separated" at the eleven plus, that was it: many Secondary Modern schools were not even equipped and did not offer the opportunity to do O Levels, you were stuck with doing CSEs. And if you were given the opportunity, the teaching depth wasn't necessarily there to maximise your potential. But also your expectations of "what you would do" were very strongly set from there on in. The chances of you having any form of pathway to get to do A-Levels, which were a pre-requisite for university were pretty much zero. More of a factor on those numbers would be, I suggest, the existence of Polytechnics, which of course have ceased to be because they have become Universities.
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