GCSE qualifications to be scrapped?

[turbobloke]

thinfourth2 said:

I'm sure vast savings could be made by scrapping the whole exam and school thing

Just give everyone a degree on the first day of school when they are 5

For exactly how long have you been fed draft Labour policy?!

[thinfourth2]

turbobloke said:

thinfourth2 said:

I'm sure vast savings could be made by scrapping the whole exam and school thing

Just give everyone a degree on the first day of school when they are 5

For exactly how long have you been fed draft Labour policy?!

No the labour policy involves kids starting school aged 5 and spending the next 30 years filling in random forms without learning anything before being rewarded with a degree

[turbobloke]

thinfourth2 said:

turbobloke said:

thinfourth2 said:

I'm sure vast savings could be made by scrapping the whole exam and school thing

Just give everyone a degree on the first day of school when they are 5

For exactly how long have you been fed draft Labour policy?!

No the labour policy involves kids starting school aged 5 and spending the next 30 years filling in random forms without learning anything before being rewarded with a degree

See, I knew you had a feed on policy

[crankedup]

Don't over concern yourselves over another half baked Tory policy idea, as usual Gove is seeking headlines in a vain attempt to place himself into the headlines. I want a Government to take forward policy ideas that are of the future, not hark back to failed policies of decades ago. Thanks to Lib-Dems this Gove thing will be on the buffers.

[turbobloke]

crankedup said:

Don't over concern yourselves over another half baked Tory policy idea, as usual Gove is seeking headlines in a vain attempt to place himself into the headlines.

At the moment it looks like it was a leftyleaks initiative, not Gove publicity seeking.

crankedup said:

I want a Government to take forward policy ideas that are of the future, not hark back to failed policies of decades ago.

Sticking with devalued exams while decrying alternatives is a good idea? Traditional style O-levels are such a failure that international schools still use them and so does the independent sector here, which unlike the state sector is world class and hasn't plummeted in international comparisons since those 'failed policies' ho ho ho.

crankedup said:

Thanks to Lib-Dems this Gove thing will be on the buffers.

As above - no thanks can be given to them at this stage as it appears to be a leak prior to consulting with the eight percenters.

Even you will know that Lib Dems don't always determine policy - as per CMD telling Clegg about use of the EU veto after the fact.

[johnfm]

crankedup said:

Don't over concern yourselves over another half baked Tory policy idea, as usual Gove is seeking headlines in a vain attempt to place himself into the headlines. I want a Government to take forward policy ideas that are of the future, not hark back to failed policies of decades ago. Thanks to Lib-Dems this Gove thing will be on the buffers.

Jeezus, your record is well and truly stuck, isn't it.

I assume you post this crap on here because your friends and family have stopped listening...

[eccles]

turbobloke said:

crankedup said:

Don't over concern yourselves over another half baked Tory policy idea, as usual Gove is seeking headlines in a vain attempt to place himself into the headlines.

At the moment it looks like it was a leftyleaks initiative, not Gove publicity seeking.

crankedup said:

I want a Government to take forward policy ideas that are of the future, not hark back to failed policies of decades ago.

Sticking with devalued exams while decrying alternatives is a good idea? Traditional style O-levels are such a failure that international schools still use them and so does the independent sector here, which unlike the state sector is world class and hasn't plummeted in international comparisons since those 'failed policies' ho ho ho.

crankedup said:

Thanks to Lib-Dems this Gove thing will be on the buffers.

As above - no thanks can be given to them at this stage as it appears to be a leak prior to consulting with the eight percenters.

Even you will know that Lib Dems don't always determine policy - as per CMD telling Clegg about use of the EU veto after the fact.

Just remind me again who got rid of 'o' levels last time round?

[blueg33]

Why scrap them/rename them, why not make the existing exams harder if the issue is just that they are too easy?

TBH having seen some of blue juniors papers (he is in the middle of GCSE's) that maths, physics and chemistry are as hard as my O level's were, and English is about the same

Its already a two tier system, you can do foundation GCSE's which are the basic ones or higher GCSE's

[ewenm]

I don't see the problem with an examination at age 16 to distinguish the adacemically talented (head for A-levels and Uni) from those who would be better suited to apprenticeships etc. I'd fund the apprenticeships (or vocational training) the same as A-levels and any higher education funding to encourage employers to participate.

The problem is that GCSEs are too easy and don't provide a suitable mechanism to differentiate between pupils. Sort this by having one single exam board that is not judged on number of A-C grades but is measured in relation to the best education systems around the world - i.e the exams should be of an equivalent difficulty to the exams in the best educated societies.

"Everyone is a winner" is synonymous with "everyone is a loser".

[turbobloke]

eccles said:

turbobloke said:

crankedup said:

Don't over concern yourselves over another half baked Tory policy idea, as usual Gove is seeking headlines in a vain attempt to place himself into the headlines.

At the moment it looks like it was a leftyleaks initiative, not Gove publicity seeking.

crankedup said:

I want a Government to take forward policy ideas that are of the future, not hark back to failed policies of decades ago.

Sticking with devalued exams while decrying alternatives is a good idea? Traditional style O-levels are such a failure that international schools still use them and so does the independent sector here, which unlike the state sector is world class and hasn't plummeted in international comparisons since those 'failed policies' ho ho ho.

crankedup said:

Thanks to Lib-Dems this Gove thing will be on the buffers.

As above - no thanks can be given to them at this stage as it appears to be a leak prior to consulting with the eight percenters.

Even you will know that Lib Dems don't always determine policy - as per CMD telling Clegg about use of the EU veto after the fact.

Just remind me again who got rid of 'o' levels last time round?

Not the Lib Dems, that time the Conservatives made a pig's ear of school qualifications. Not sure what your point is, as there isn't one to make - I criticised CMD in another thread earlier today and hammer the Tories on a regular basis over their lunatic environmental and energy policies.

In education matters, the Conservatives are now getting back on track, and having you arguing against their plans would be reasuring for Gove. Are you?

[blueg33]

I think that a bigger problem is the a Uni Degree of one sort or another is available to easily. In my day the top 5% went to Uni and got an Honours degree, now any muppet can go and get a degree in a mildly academic subject.

As an employer I now distinguish candidates by looking at those who have a masters, they all have degrees.

[turbobloke]

blueg33 said:

I think that a bigger problem is the a Uni Degree of one sort or another is available to easily. In my day the top 5% went to Uni and got an Honours degree, now any muppet can go and get a degree in a mildly academic subject.

As an employer I now distinguish candidates by looking at those who have a masters, they all have degrees.

From experience as a masters lecturer with two unis, not at the same time I know you'll know to check the uni and the programme

[blueg33]

turbobloke said:

From experience as a masters lecturer with two unis, not at the same time I know you'll know to check the uni and the programme

Indeed, in fact where the degree is directly relevant to the role, I check the course content

[elster]

kelk said:

LiamB said:

Just spent the last 3 years doing them.. finished today. (Just got in from final exam)

And now they scrap them. They need to stop messing everything around. Just keep it as it is, GCSE's are fine.

Spoken with true hindsight

If the GCSE exam system is so fine, why not write with grammatically correct English?

Once you enter into the world of employment or Higher Education where you will work alongside international students, here you will realise how far behind the GCSE system is to where we used to be.

[Chrisw666]

elster said:

Once you enter into the world of employment or Higher Education where you will work alongside international students, here you will realise how far behind the GCSE system is to where we used to be.

Is it the GCSE system that is at fault or is it the results culture that teaches people to pass exams and not think for themselves and leads to schools helping students who are weak to develop strategies for passing even if that means they don't learn much. The exam boards don't help either allowing phonetic English, txt spk and very weak grammar (and I don't think mine is perfect) to go unchecked if the person marking understands the point the student was making.

[blueg33]

Surely GCSE is just a name. Its content and difficulty that counts. Spending ££££ changing the name is pointless IMO

[martin84]

JontyR said:

Students shouldnt be allowed to resit their exams, just because they didnt get the A* they wanted.

So a student shouldn't be allowed to be disappointed with their result, go away, study harder and then come back to improve their grade and their prospects? Interesting.

AndyClockwise said:

but will he actually achieve this?

Probably not. The Lib Dems will be furious about this, in fact they're already furious despite the fact nothing has actually been confirmed or even constructed. I understand the Lib Dems point that they don't want to go back to the 50s where the average students are essentially put on the bottom row of a two tier system and essentially told to get used to lifting heavy stuff for a living. I get that, but there's also an argument the universal qualification holds back the really smart ones who essentially need to go and get a Masters these days for it to count for anything.

I don't buy into the jingoistic nonsense about how scrapping the GCSE will 'return the UK to an education system to be proud of' because that's just looking at the past with horribly rose tinted glasses. I'm not sure anybody was particularly 'proud' of the UK's education system 30 years ago. The principles of the current system are fine, you're judged by two years of coursework as well as a final exam rather than a memory test designed to result in lower pass rates and therefore keep Uni numbers down.

Gove has probably said what needs to be said about 'competative dumbing down' and all the rest of it, so many Education Secretaries in the past have been too afraid to speak the truth but with strong Lib Dem opposition and heavy objections from the teaching unions (who are hardly fans of Gove) and plenty of schools I doubt he'll really get many changes through.

[Jandywa]

ooooooooo back in my day we had to pay to go to work and lived in a shed


fk OFF.

[jesusbuiltmycar]

Loony Lefty Loses It Live On BBC With Toby Young

[elster]

Chrisw666 said:

elster said:

Once you enter into the world of employment or Higher Education where you will work alongside international students, here you will realise how far behind the GCSE system is to where we used to be.

Is it the GCSE system that is at fault or is it the results culture that teaches people to pass exams and not think for themselves and leads to schools helping students who are weak to develop strategies for passing even if that means they don't learn much. The exam boards don't help either allowing phonetic English, txt spk and very weak grammar (and I don't think mine is perfect) to go unchecked if the person marking understands the point the student was making.

The name is an irrelevance, but the ability to get marks on papers for answering question a 5 year old wouldn't have problems with is wrong.

At present the exam system doesn't educate, as you say, it teaches them to pass exams. They sit paper after paper after paper and practice questions, rather than teach the subject as a whole.