So how does English education really compare with other systems?

Scotland is not England. We have a very different system - currently in a very worrying state of change. However, my children love school, mostly learn plenty and will almost certainly get to University where they will have a ball. They can go to some ancient and very venerable institutions and follow their dreams. The downside is that the new system makes them learn things of no use to bright children and seems more about citizenship and working together rather than useful things like programming and languages.

You are holding up 64.3% of places going to state schools to back up your opinion but privately educated applicants are small in pri

Im not talking about high flying jobs just regular jobs but in a different country as the UK wont be able to provide jobs for all we will have to look further afield.

I went to an education conference where a professor pointed out that in all his travels, no country said to him 'well apart from a few tweaks, we've got it just about right'. No country is completely satisfied with its provision. It's a complex social, cultural and economic mix.

I think the comment 'the World is their oyster' was taken as arrogant as it might be taken to mean that these children will have their pick of the cream of jobs. I'm not sure if that is what was meant, but India and China currently have a miniscule proportion of their more wealthy/educated young people going out into the economy and they are doing fantastically well internationally. As these countries develop and send more of their bright young things out their influence will increase as will the competition for jobs. they are talented, hard working and willing to work for lower salaries than children from western economies.

No matter what you think of the comparative education systems, there is no doubt that simply in terms of numbers, the populations of China and India far far outweigh our own. I know less about Russia and Brazil but believe similar comparisons may be made. We are a very small country and the British brand already has less influence internationally than we might think.

I think the education here that I have experience with is fantastic you don?t agree, let?s leave it at that.

Oxford is on course to have the highest ever proportion of state school pupils in its undergraduate intake this autumn 2011, publishing figures on Friday showing that just 41.5% of offers were made to private school candidates.

State school pupils received 58.5% of offers. Based on previous years, the proportion of state school pupils accepted is likely to be around 1% lower than this figure. The increased share of offers reflects a rise in applications from state-educated children, which reached 64.3% for entry this autumn.

If you were to break down the background of those at these institutions you will find the figures heavily favouring students from private schools and overseas students.

If you want to make a point about how great British state schools are then I suggest you don't highlight the on going debate about how few state school kids get into these institutions.

Remember that we have a very different education system in Scotland. (a few posters have talked about the UK system)

I have seen the education sytem up close in other countries and the UK is not "absolutely fantastic" compared to other countries. If you don't believe me then pull up the world rankings that occasionally gets published. Then pull up the reports about poor MFL skills. Then pull up the reports that shows that Brits are neglecting Physics, Maths and the like in favour of 'easier' subjects.

It is insular if your are unaware of this and arrogant if you think that there is a global economy out there waiting for your children despite all of this.

So you are accusing my personal experience of 3 different education systems as being insular LOL
I don?t really rate these global education polls, some of the countries at the top of the league South Korea, Denmark, Liechtenstein for example do not have the same demographical range as the UK, how can you compare a country like South Korea to the UK ? We have children in our schools from all over the world some of them can barely speak a word of English yet alone write it therefore our results (which are only taken from 15 year olds in state schools, so again unfair analysis) will be weaker than other countries.
If I take your penchant for education polls into consideration have a look at the world?s top 10 Universities ; Cambridge (number 1 in the world), Oxford (5) Imperial Collage London (6) and UCL (7) so that?s 4 of our Unis in the top 10 world rankings, not bad.
I also wonder why there are children from all over the world that come to the UK to be educated could it be that our education system is not that bad after all.

The problem is that there is no single answer because the qaulity of schools varies dramatically in the UK. I attended a state grammar that was highly regarded, which then became a state comprehensive and is now one of the lowest in the UK for added value My children attend an independent school and get a far better education than I did, and are as well equipped as they can be for global competiton. I taught in state schools in France and Japan where the standards were higher than I received in my education. I am still in contact with several former pupils from those schools who have done extremely well, those from my own school not so much

"The education in the UK is absolutely fantastic compared to the education they received abroad.... Look around the globe, how many Brits are already working in Hong Kong, The Middle East and Europe, for our children it will be a case of the world is my oyster."

I have seen the education sytem up close in other countries and the UK is not "absolutely fantastic" compared to other countries. If you don't believe me then pull up the world rankings that occasionally gets published. Then pull up the reports about poor MFL skills. Then pull up the reports that shows that Brits are neglecting Physics, Maths and the like in favour of 'easier' subjects.

It is insular if your are unaware of this and arrogant if you think that there is a global economy out there waiting for your children despite all of this.

How is saying that the world (because of globalization) will be our children?s oyster, insular or arrogant?

We don?t live in the days when school leavers worked in the local village or town for local employers do we, there are not enough jobs in the UK now can you imagine what it?s going to be like in 10 years time.

All this talk of globalisation ought to be relevant to me because DC are dual nationality. But I still think it's bollux; plenty of low skill & even low brains people are moving around the world, too.

DC in England are getting a much better primary education than I did (USA). Teaching methods & attitudes are just so much better. I haven't decided about secondary, yet. I tend to think the qualification system (GCSEs) is pants for instilling love of learning, but I am waiting with baited breath. I don't think either state or private is going to be great (I will have DC in both types of secondary).

Agree that the British love to talk themselves down. I'm pretty sure most state education is alright here, really, but still room for improvement.

"Is this not insulting ?"

Well, the opinion in the post did come over as insular and arrogant. Could I have made my point more diplomatically? Probably.

Some schools in England are fantastic, probably the top 10%.
Most schools in England are pretty good. Your local school will most probably be fine for nearly all children, probably 80% of the total would be in this category.
Some are a bit ropey and/or work for some children but not others, probably the bottom 10%
If any are absolutely awful they get sorted out sharpish.

Independent schools look better on paper because they recruit from the top 20% of families in income and/or intelligence terms. If you strip that out then the teaching looks less brilliant, usually comparable with a good state school. That's not to say they don't have their uses, and they seem to do particularly good work with some 14-19 year olds.

In the thread about learning Mandarin a (Chinese?) poster accused some Westerners of being insular and arrogant. Hush but I think that he/she was talking about you

Is this not insulting ?

"I have seen your comments on various other threads you are usually insulting or arguing with someone"

This is a forum for discussion. God forbid there should be arguing going on.

As for being insulting, if you are going to be patronising with your "Have you ever lived in another country?" then what do you expect in return?

Haziedoll, I agree the education my children recieve is far superior and much more advanced than in my day.

I agree with Boschy. Generally I think the state school system in this country is good. I think there is far too much angst over it all really.

The media loves to harp on about how rubbish it is but they have always done that. The state education that my children will receive at secondary school is 100 times better than the sub standard education I received. Schools are more accountable these days.

Interesting thread. I grew up in NZ, did my schooling and two degrees there and did a postgraduate qualification and another degree in the UK. I've also taught in the UK and Scottish systems. I went to bog standard schools in NZ and, when there are only 7 universities in the country, it's hard to call any one better than the other.

With the disclaimer that anecdote does not equal data, and bearing in mind my recollections are highly subjective, I think the UK education system is nowhere near as good as it likes to think it is. I find it highly elitist, from primary onwards. It strikes me that the whole public/private debate here obscures the fact that poor education happens in both sectors. The worst examples I saw of poor teaching all came from the private sector.

That aside, I work in Higher Education. Maybe I'm an old gimmer who thought it was all better in her day, but I'm appalled at the low levels of literacy I routinely encounter in undergraduates (and a significant proportion of postgraduates). The simple things I was taught in primary school, grammar, spelling, logic, how to structure a written piece of work etc seem not to be taught with any rigour. We also left school scientifically and mathematically literate. I remember being taken aback when teaching computing that 18 year old students hadn't encountered binary before. By the time I left primary school I remember being able to calculate in binary, octal and hexidecimal. We were also expected to know how to conduct a formal debate and were taught basic logic by the time we were 12. However, like the UK languages were a massive weak point.

When I studied for my MSc in the UK I remember getting a bit worked up beforehand about how hard it was going to be. It was in a subject I hadn't studied at undergraduate level, in fact it was a completely different discipline. I was stunned at how easy it was. The level of scholarship and the amount of research that was required was minimal compared to the MA I had done in NZ. The support, guidance and spoonfeeding that went on was on a scale I had not encountered before.

So how does this translate into the global market place? I guess to answer that you need to look at who works where. I can't speak for the UK, but wherever I go, and I'm quite widely travelled, I always encounter a Kiwi working at some interesting job.

I have seen your comments on various other threads you are usually insulting or arguing with someone

Wheres the ignore button!

If I don't agree with you then that makes me 'argumentative'. Interesting perspective.

And I'm sorry that you don't think that, having lived in a number of major cities, qualifies me to speak authoritatively on the subject, unlike your goodself [where is that damned emoticon for SARCASM?]

You?re just argumentative. If you knew anything about life outside the UK you would know that you are talking a pile of poop.

"Have you ever lived in another country?"

It greatly irritates me when people feel to wheel out their CVs in great detail just to make a minor point so lets say I have lived in various countries including Germany, HK, Singapore and the US and leave it at that.

2.9 million ex-pat Brits live in the USA, Canada and Australia

11,000 British citizens in Brazil

29,000 in Kenya

55,000 ex-pats in the United Arab Emirates

26,000 live in Saudi Arabia

761,000 live in Spain

59,000 - Cyprus

200,000 - France

Pushed to the Edge, Would it be reasonable to assume that as so many Brits are living/working abroad now that in the future there will be more Brits (including our children) that will look for/ and find work abroad. When I said the world will be there oyster I meant that our children will look further for their opportunities in life, the world is now a much smaller place then when I left school.
Have you ever lived in another country?