No student loan for pupils who fail GCSE maths or English

[stregadelcucito]

Above is in a few of the papers this morning, new government proposals to control student numbers

I find this depressing, one of my kids is amazing at maths but dreadful at English (they are ND so no amount of tutoring, even if I had the money, will bring them up to the required level).

All my / DP’s GCSE kids are under such pressure already…

I wanted to ask, do you have a degree, but also failed maths or English?

Thank you

Degree in a science subject here, have worked in the lab for going on 20 years. Just scraped through A level maths, and failed my first year module at Uni and had to resit.

I can hand on heart say I’ve used about 1% of what I was taught in my job. Everything with numbers is so specific and we do it so often, it’s a breeze. Bloody trig, I never want to see it again in my life!

I also have a dedicated statistical person in my department, and excel to do anything else for me. I really wouldn’t understand blocking the vast majority of degrees to people who can’t pass a maths exam.

Accountant and maths/physics related degrees aside, of course.

I scraped a pass at GCSE maths, could very easily have failed. At the start of my GCSE year my family left a refuge and started cycling through various short term rentals. 20 years later and I now work in data analysis in a university! Turns out I am confidently numerate if I have a stable base and I can see the practical application.

I passed both and have a degree.

However, I do not agree with the gov in this. While I broadly think that most students should have these qualifications, I think that it should
Be left to universities to decide on each individual case. As PPs have said, there are varied valid reasons for allowing people to do degrees without these qualifications.

@SunnyKlara

The government should be doing more to make non-degree careers appealing to more people, not just as the "University rejects". There are some seriously skilled, well paid jobs that don't require a degree and that should be better recognised. That will help improve the numbers of young people going into them

Carrot, not just stick.

Agreed.

I'm also not so much fussed by literacy in some professions as communication skills. E.g. Checking that you've addressed the right person respectfully, answering all the questions asked of you, communicating time frames etc

I looked after a team of heating and plumbing engineers for my first job, and the man with dyslexia was the best at communicating in those terms. It didn't matter a fig that his spelling was poor - he nailed the communication element.

Lots of varied and thought-provoking stories of past exam struggles but subsequent successes and fulfilment. It strikes me that the question that needs to be asked is whether GCSE Maths or English Lang really measure the functional skills required in modern life and whether the 'do or die' exam assessment is suitable for everyone. Alternative measures of functional skill and alternative methods of assessment need to be available (and known about and used by schools) if there is a desire to use Maths and English attainment as a means to controlling overall University student numbers.

Excepting for genuine disabilities I don’t know how you could fail GCSE maths or English. They’re not asking for a top grade. If they’ve only attended the class and not even completed homework they should still easily pass.

@Teenylittlefella

I really think that if you don't work in FE or secondary education, or haven't had a child working on these new Give GCSEs, you should not comment. These exams are not "basic" and they are not "easy".

If you are an employer, you won't yet have any takers of the post 2016 GCSEs through yet. My ds was the first year, and his year are now second year at uni.

Trust me, these are hard, very high in content and application, and very easy to fail. The "pass" mark for GCSE maths was 26 percent that first year, and yet still 40 odd percent of youngsters couldn't achieve that. These exams are skewed to identify the very high attainers getting level 9. They are crucifying youngsters who find the subject harder. It is scandalous and no doubt will swing back a bit over the next ten years, but please don't assume they are "easy" or "basic". They bloody aren't.

They are easy and they are designed to be,that is the point! Most people pass them them. Do you think most people are super intelligent? If you are of average iq and you apply yourself you will pass eventually. If you either don't apply yourself or have limited 'intelligence' you shouldn't be at university anyway, especially not at the nations expense.

[quote user1497207191]@Peanutgurgle

I had to do a numeracy test to get onto my second degree course as maths was pretty fundamental to the degree.

Perhaps that's the answer then. Uni's to provide numeracy/literacy tests of a nationally recognised level, for those without GCSE's, in order to qualify for student loan funding.[/quote]
This seems to me to be the obvious way forward. Using ‘GCSE passes’ as a proxy for ‘English and Maths skills sufficient for a degree’ is fraught with obvious issues:

• The pass rate is artificially set so that around a third of students fail. To pass is not shoeing an absolute standard, just a standard relative to the cohort.
• The skills tested in the GCSE exam are not necessarily the skills that are needed ‘in real life’, which us why employers complain about those who have exam passes but who lack the skills that employers ‘think they should have’

Using tests of numeracy and literacy instead (or even, shock horror, making functional Maths and functional English skills part if the 16+ suite of qualifications that everyone should do), with purely relevant content and an absolute rather than a relative pass mark, would seem to me to be good.

However, all of this thread seems predicated on the idea that students should have Maths snd English. The BBC us reporting ‘or EE equivalent at A level’, so those without eg Maths but with good A level results would be fine. The number of students with neither is probably very tiny and might only include eg performers going to Conservatoire who could be an excepted case.

The uni I work in doesn’t allow entry onto programmes if applicants don’t have GSCE maths and English. It’s a fairly standard requirement I would think.

@Knockdown42

Excepting for genuine disabilities I don’t know how you could fail GCSE maths or English. They’re not asking for a top grade. If they’ve only attended the class and not even completed homework they should still easily pass.

The pass mark is set so 30% ALWAYS fail.

It could be that everyone gets over 75% - the pass mark is then adjusted so 30% of candidates will still fail [disclainer - I have not looked up the 30% but it IS a relative rather than absolute grading system - a percentage MUST fail, that’s how the grade boundaries are set]

SunnyKlara but sadly lots of vocational courses that would’ve typically attracted people without GCSE’s have now been made into degree courses. I agree that far too many people unnecessarily go to university and bump up a load of debt. You are right that people need to be making a real and informed choice about their future.

In my experience the admissions process is now far more detached. When I applied for my first degrees I was able to speak to course lecturers and there was some flexibility in my application. Now it is ‘computer says no’. In my experience it is a real battle to speak to someone with real knowledge of the course. Especially post covid.

The comment from a pp about Pythagoras’s theorem being hard! It’s addition and division

ALL maths, even the most complicated, is addition!

@KittenKong

So they are saying that some universities allow entry to students with 2 E grades?

It’s just a huge money making business - get every kid to want to go to the ‘university experience’ and charge them £££.

When I was a student (in the 80s) it wasn’t assumed you went off to higher education - a fair amount of kids went to do diplomas at college or went to do an apprenticeship (or got a job). It wasn’t ‘uni or bust’.

When you met new people it wasn’t assumed that you had a degree. I worked in one place where the director wouldn’t interview people without a degree (I suppose she thought it meant something - but now everyone and their dog had a degree). Are they more ‘educated’? I don’t think so - not if the allow people with 2 Es to get into degree courses.

Conservatoires, drama schools and some Foundation courses (basically an extra year at Level 3) are the places admitting students with those grades.

This is long overdue. Not everybody is academic enough for University and not every job needs a degree. As many employers have come to realise that by employing someone educated to degree level these days does not guarantee you will have an intelligent and able employee.

Ok, people aren't really getting it, so I am attaching the story my ds wrote in one of his GCSEs. We got the paper back to see where things were going wrong. He got a 3 for this paper, and the other 4 times he took the same exam. Don't tell me this person is illiterate or even average in terms of his ability to write meaningfully. What he can't do is write fast, or compare unseen literature pieces at speed.

Do you really think that this writer is not "clever" enough for uni?

The prompt was "write a story about a time when things turned out unexpectedly".

I thought almost all unis have these as baseline expectations? This is why dd2 didn't apply. She is severely dyslexic with poor working memory. She got a D twice in English. She also did a Level 3 btech in Business for years 12 and 13. Without English gcse, she was told she could not go to uni.
Instead she got a job with a really good major employer locally.

@Teenylittlefella

Ok, people aren't really getting it, so I am attaching the story my ds wrote in one of his GCSEs. We got the paper back to see where things were going wrong. He got a 3 for this paper, and the other 4 times he took the same exam. Don't tell me this person is illiterate or even average in terms of his ability to write meaningfully. What he can't do is write fast, or compare unseen literature pieces at speed.

Do you really think that this writer is not "clever" enough for uni?

The prompt was "write a story about a time when things turned out unexpectedly".

I'm sorry @Teenylittlefella but I'm an English teacher of 22 years. This isn't grade 5 writing unfortunately. It is literate but to achieve Grade 5 there needs to be much more sophistication of vocab, sentence structure, tense changes, literary devices.

Sounds fair. I don't understand the objection. Many vocational courses, college, A'level's, won't let you on without GCSE maths. And GCSE English should be considered the same, a basic requirement.
So, yea I support this, surprised it hasn't been done before.

@SpiderinaWingMirror

I thought almost all unis have these as baseline expectations? This is why dd2 didn't apply. She is severely dyslexic with poor working memory. She got a D twice in English. She also did a Level 3 btech in Business for years 12 and 13. Without English gcse, she was told she could not go to uni. Instead she got a job with a really good major employer locally.

I completely agree with this, I don’t understand people’s fixation with sending their kids to Uni when it’s clearly not the right path. No-one is saying they are not bright or clever enough to cope, but there are other options to get to the end point successfully. All university will do is leave them with huge loans. There are too many filler courses at Uni, which are just an exercise in making money.

@motherrunner

Yes I know! He failed over and over because he can't write fast enough to demonstrate the range and development required! My point is that people in this thread are saying that you must be basically illiterate if you can't pass. I am just trying to show that a pass isn't as easily achieved as people are thinking, and that you can be perfectly literate and not pass.

I’m sorry @Teenylittlefella but I'm an English teacher of 22 years. This isn't grade 5 writing unfortunately. It is literate but to achieve Grade 5 there needs to be much more sophistication of vocab, sentence structure, tense changes, literary devices.

I don’t think she was quibbling about the grading. More saying that that was a sufficient literacy attainment level for some degree courses (presumably not meaning Literature courses).

X post. I won’t comment on the irony there.

@Teenylittlefella what are his plans?

@TeenPlusCat

One problem is that GCSEs are now graded on a curve, so they are designed such that 1/3rd will fail English & Maths regardless.

Are you sure on that?

Isn't it graded on ability to do certain skills?

I support it. If they don't have the basic skills they aren't going to do well at uni and they certainly wont on the courses that are actually worth something.

Uni isn't the route for everyone, a lot of people I work with in a highly professional field have come through a different route. Modern apprenticeships are the way forward and making a big comeback now after Covid cocked it all up.

I worked with an apprentice who had no GCSEs at all as he was so dyslexic he just couldnt do it. He is now a Director, professionally qualified, he just needed a different way to learn.

@Teenylittlefella

Ok, people aren't really getting it, so I am attaching the story my ds wrote in one of his GCSEs. We got the paper back to see where things were going wrong. He got a 3 for this paper, and the other 4 times he took the same exam. Don't tell me this person is illiterate or even average in terms of his ability to write meaningfully. What he can't do is write fast, or compare unseen literature pieces at speed.

Do you really think that this writer is not "clever" enough for uni?

The prompt was "write a story about a time when things turned out unexpectedly".

Both of mine are dyslexic, they are definitely 'clever' enough for uni but I wouldn't push for it, they will struggle to keep up. They are 'clever' enough that they can find a different route to what they want to do.

Different routes for different people, that's all.