Absolutely FASCINATING EU report about shadow education (private tutoring)

[Bonsoir]

I cannot recommend this report more highly to anyone interested in the shadow education industry, from whatever perspective:

www.nesse.fr/nesse/activities/reports/activities/reports/the-challenge-of-shadow-education-1

Happy half-term reading [hsmile]

""Shadow education is a contested issue. Its proponents claim that it can help low achievers to keep up with their peers, can further stretch the learning of high achievers, and can increase society?s stock of human capital, thereby contributing to wider economic and social objectives."

And this is bad why?"

This isn't bad: see the second sentence - this is stating the views in favour of shadow education.

Interesting report, and I think some of the comments here demonstrate why it is useful for the EU and other organisations to commission research like this (rather than each member state paying for it separately).

We all tend to see things through the prism of our own experience, so we assume that the UK is an example of why 'everyone is doing it'.

actually, looking at this research, a more interesting question might be 'why are we doing it less than lots of other countries', and also 'what would the unintended consequences be if we switched to a broader qualification at age 18 and / or introduced a more transparent university admissions process based purely on the points actually achieved by applicants to a given course?'.

Both of which propositions seem immediately attractive to me, but perhaps less so after reading this!

What I was reading. Bonsoir, was that the summary was damning with faint praise. They quote the views in favour and somehow manage to make them sound bad, whilst then making the views against sound like they should be advantages. And I've not even gone near the part about controlling it...

'scaryteacher - FYI, (sic) is used to indicate doubt about fact, logic, grammar, meaning, punctuation etc, not merely orthography.' As these were not in doubt, and I used the word proletariat advisedly, I am still at a loss as to why you used 'sic'. Elucidate please.

Somebloke: "Although private tutoring is of course more affordable to the well-off, it is nonetheless not inaccessible to families who would struggle to afford a private education."

Quite. That would be me. And as I said on page 1 (although I had my wrists firmly slapped by Bonsoir [surely the EU has outlawed hand-slapping?!]) it is rather typical of administrations of whatever hue to focus their disapproval on those in the middle trying to climb -or at least maintain their hold - on the greasy pole, rather than those who have "legitimately" bought their educational privileges.