Why are Indian & Chinese kids attaining much higher than white/black/Pakistani children?

[Widilo]

I’ve been thinking this over today. DS recently went to a Kumon class (if you trawl through Mn threads over the years this is generally much hated on MN). All the kids coming out were Indian or Chinese, all the kids in her group Indian or Chinese. A smattering of black children and 1 white child (DS). DS won’t be going back (it was a trial class) because it just seemed to be repetitive rote learning of hundreds of sums, but clearly this is working somewhere along the line?

stats linked here www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/11-to-16-years-old/gcse-results-attainment-8-for-children-aged-14-to-16-key-stage-4/latest

Yeah, I agree. Both those jobs sound quite interesting.

@TruckerBarbie - I think the desire to have kids or not makes a big difference. For some ethnic minorities having kids is important - sometimes from a ‘family honour/longevity’ thing or for someone to look after them when they get old (many come from places where there was/is little state pension scheme/medical care/support).

I’ve been in the medical/care sector - I think it is generally nice to see the visits and support many ethnic minorities (including white - Italian, Irish heritage) give their elderly relatives. It helps that there are often siblings, so they can share out the load (though in many cases women do more). There are also some v dedicated white British families - but also those who are frail who have no visitors when in hospital.

Certainly medical/care sector in U.K. is not one I’d encourage kids into - from quality of life or earnings point of view (though it is a vital sector). The skills are quite transferable though - and could have better lifestyle abroad (at least medicine/nursing). It’s really interesting You talking about the pay and work-life-balance of driving/construction jobs - I wonder if immigrants have some of their view coloured by what those jobs are like in their original countries (relative pay of driving/construction to medicine/nursing). Do you get much sexism? Someone from uni got driven away from civil engineering due to sexism at the building site.

@TruckerBarbie you sound amazing! Loved your most recent posts.

I have also ditched a corporate job for a vastly different life and I certainly have no regrets.

Thanks!

I think it's so easy to get caught up in trying to achieve society's idea of 'a good life' that you can forget that a lot of the general public are actually quite unhappy day to day.

My job certainly wouldn't be for everybody but I love it. Right now I'm getting paid to sit at home as most of our customers are off due to the weather being too cold to build.