97 % pass rate for A-Levels ; how did that happen?

[m1m1rie]

I took my A-levels in 1989 and passed all three, and was in the minority amongst my peers. Most people failed at least one and only the really, really clever ones could achieve A-grades. Now, with so many passing and record numbers achieving A-grades how do we differentiate between those who are genuinely talented and those who are not? A girl I know has just passed 3 A-levels. She spends her days chatting on her mobile, obsessing about herself and often didn't bother going into college if she didn't feel like it. She even turned up late for one of her exams. As far as being 'clever' is concerned, she couldn't hold a conversation with you unless it was about celebrities or herself, and yet she has managed to pass all three A-levels. I am dumbstruck. I find it demeans those who do put effort into learning as they will all just be lumped in together now and treated with disdain by those who think that all kids are thick and only have A-levels because the exams are easier to pass now. Whatever is going on with the current system, it's not doing anyone any favours, it only serves to make Government stats look good.

Clumsymum - not surprised you are finding that too. I get annoyed when the heads of exam boards etc who claim there is no dumbing down, point to the fact that most of the material is still there on the syllabus, as proof that standards are the same - yes the material is still taught, but you don't have to be as good at it as you used to be....

Rustybear - congratulations to your son. I looked round Warwick - it looked lovely & several of my friends liked it there. I hope he enjoys it too.

I only had 1 interview for uni. But it did vary as several friends had 2 or 3 (normally in the ones that were furthest away!)

I agree with English / grammar - I feel that the best grammar lessons I had at school were in my german lessons! I don't remember doing much on English grammar at secondary school.

I'm going to read this in detail later cos DP and I constantly argue over it. The British Ed System strikes me as far superior to the Irish system I went through. Some of my colleagues at work who are very well educated people all say their kids work much harder than they ever did and are thought to think from themselves.

DP is very much of the mindset of some of these posters - if the standard keeps increasing then almost all kids will have A grades.etc...

I just think he is a bit like my Mum who could not understand why we didn't know the towns in Ireland by rote but were taught Geomorphology. Times change

'There' and 'Their' was beaten into me (literally) when I was a kid. I had a psychotic teacher and most of the time I remember but only yesterday I used in incorrectly on a post here. It happens when I type quickly and read it through quickly.

It is a memory feat and nothing more.

martianbishop: my dad used to lecture in Maths at a 6th-form college and he'd do the same. After all, 6th-formers have chosen to be there, rather than get a job at 16, so you'd think they'd at least have the courtesy to look interested.

I have two friends who are university lecturers, in French and in Engineering. The former sometimes finds himself having to teach his first-year students grammar points which they should have learnt at GCSE or A-Level (e.g. the Past Historic) while the latter gets students who don't know Pythagoras' theorem. I mean, what have they been learning?

Of course, university is no longer an elite thing. When I went to university in the late 80s, under 10% of people did so. These days, with the government aiming to get 50% of people into higher education (disastrous idea in my opinion), you can take your D in Design and your E in Textiles and get a place through clearing to read Batik & Raffia at the University of Central Crapshire (formerly Crapchester Polytechnic).

I read somewhere that there are more graduates with Photography degrees in the UK than there are photography jobs in the whole of the European Union. We don't need any more unemployable media graduates - we do need more qualified plumbers, carpenters and joiners.

I don't think that people who went to university were ever the elite that perhaps is implied by them only making up 10% of the population. Neither of my parents went to university, but they did have professional qualifications (physiotherapy, engineering) that would now be obtained through a degree course. There are still professional qualifications (e.g. accountancy) that can be followed to post graduate level from an O-level entry point. When I started my working career in the early 90's in a marketing agency, many of the senior staff hadn't gone to university but had worked their way up. My point is that there have always been bright people who took an alternative path to university. Perhaps now they would feel pushed into going to university, but that doesn't mean that the only reason they didn't go before was lack of intelligence.

Moreover, it is possible to study art at a former Polytechnic with lower A-level grades - but most art colleges admit students on the basis of a portfolio, not grades. I don't think textiles students at De Montfort University could care less whether it changed back to Leicester Poly - its just an admin issue.

I agree that university is a waste of time for many people (particularly if they just do whatever course because everybody else is going to uni). However, I really disagree with the idea that the 10% who went to university in previous decades represented the creme de la creme, or the idea that only 10% of the population are 'elite' enough to go to university.

Perhaps elite is the wrong word. But university used to be for those who were more academic, and - although I may be remembering this wrongly - it was hard to get in anywhere with less than three Cs or the equivalent.

I agree there have always been bright people who were not academic, and that's why I think it was wrong to abolish the distinction between universities and polytechnics. Put broadly and crudely, universities were for education, polytechncs for training. As you rightly say, a lot of courses which are now being done as degrees would have been professional vocational courses before.

Whether you think more than 10% of people are good enough to go to university depends, I suppose, on what you think university is for - and the goalposts for that have been changed over the last 15 years.

when i left school in 1985 it was the more academic types that went to university, i would have had no hope at all. i think it's good for most children to go onto further education, leaving school at 16 really has done me no favours at all and i will encourage my boys to really think about their future.

Our local university was advertising for a lecturer last year...............

...............In pet grooming.

Sorry, but clipping animal hair is a vocational not academic subject. I feel that a university degree in pet husbandry (or whatever the couse is called) is not a useful way for the taxpayer to spend their money. Fido can get clipped without the clipper having a degree in pet grooming.

Spend the money on modern apentishops in plumbimg etc instead, we have a national shortage.

unquietdad - you are remembering wrongly. 2 es has always been the min standard for entry to university and I remember un-academic courses like Star Trek studies in the 80s.

I'm afraid I don't have time to read all the replies, so someone has probably said this, but a 97% pass rate makes perfect sense to me given that 6th forms do all they can to dissuade students who are likely to fail from taking the exams. now if the pass rate was given as a % of students who begin the course, or even as a % of all 18 yr olds it would be rather more meaningful.

SP, would that you were right about schools disuading kids from doing A levels. It is bums on seats time for most schools. A level classes bring a lot of money into schools. We don't allo kids who don't get at least a C grade. My brother works in a school where that have to take any child who wants to do an A level....even those with grade Gs at GCSE.

and mb - i don't see why we shouldn't have degree level quals in vocational subjects. what are medicine and engineering if not vocational after all? plus most people get onto those courses via some sort of appreticeship or other experience.

the college I went to and both of the colleges I've worked in had a policy of having a quiet word with any student who either had low attendance or whose work was a bit rubbish. when i took a levels I had to do so externally (and I had to pay) because of that (my attendance was low), so had I failed I wouldn't have been part of the stats for my course. I was under the impression that 6th forms in schools were even worse - lots of our students at tech were refused places in the local schools.

No, you are right. Howvere I don't think that a degree in pet grooming is a good use of our money. I would far rather see someone get a modern appentiship in plumbing or carpentry.

There are some subjects that seem to defy the degree of academic rigor that should go hand in hand with a degree. So while I can accept that there is a place for, say graphic design as a 3 year degree course, I feel that pet grooming should be a 6 months 12 months vocational course

I will agree that more academic courses were taught at university in the past, but I am defining acadamic as "Theoretical or speculative without a practical purpose or intention".

"I agree that there have always been bright people who were not academic" - I think my point is more that there have always been bright people who are just as academic (not sure what academic means in this sense - good at writing essays?) as people who go to university, but previously they were educated in different ways or just never got the chance to go to university.

I now work for an engineering company. All engineers are now graduates, whereas previously it was possible to enter a company as an apprentice - It doesn't mean that the engineers are now doing substandard degrees.

As I said in a previous post, I went to a very 'academic' private school. Out of 80 pupils in my year in the late eighties maybe 3 didn't go on to higher education (and the majority went to 'proper universities', atleast a quarter to Oxbridge). Assuming that only 10% of people should go to university, either a) alot of us were substandard and shouldn't have been going to university at all, b) We were the correct people to be going to university, and people who can afford private schools really do have brighter children c) actually we should have gone to university, as well as our equally bright peers at state schools who slipped through the net, and more than 10% of the population are bright enough to go to university. I tend to think 'c'. I also think that given that only about 53% of Oxbridge's undergraduate intake last year came from state schools, there are still many bright children slipping through the net.

sp, re the schools admission policy, it is very much done on a school by school basis. As I say my bro's school has to admit anyone. two years ago they had to admit a boy who had failed his GCSEs because he was caught cheating in one of the exams.

If you have good catchment areas, with lots of potential sixthform studentsm schools can afford to be picky. Further down the scale, bums on seats is more the case. What is sad it that it is most damaging for the students who would be far better suited by other, more appropriate, equaly valid qualificaions. But everyone sees the A level as the gold standard. many of these kids woul do far better in GNVQ/ BTEC style courses, some of which can go to Phd level.

i dunno, there's all your hair dye mixing equations and your shine ratios and stuff to think about. there's probably a lot of science behind pet grooming.

Exactly martianbishop - A-levels aren't right for everyone.

SP, you're right two Es was always the theoretical minimum requirement. Actually, that's what I was offered - as was everyone who passed the Oxbridge entrance exam. In practice, though, very few places would let anyone in with JUST two Es.

perhaps it was just the areas I worked/lived in then.

I do agree about students taking a levels when they would be better off on a gnvq though. but actually, having more vocational degree courses would help to make lower level vocational courses more accepted. renaming them would help too - vocational a levels anyone?

And whatever the debate about what constitutes "academic", universities are now full of people who need basic A-level (or even GCSE) revision in their first year, who don't know how to put an argument together (one thing that writing essays teaches you) and can't spell. Or use apostrophes properly. Or tell the difference between "there" and "their".

And when you insist that people who go to university should be able to do these things, you risk being labelled either a pedant or a snob. I find that sad.

ud: I know several people who were offered 2 Es without any entrance exams years ago. and I know others who were offered 3 As. The fact is that mediochre students (well, mediochre, middle class students) have been going to university for years. The only difference as far as i can see is that the polytechnics are now universities too and that more people apply.

LOL at the hair dye.

We are now offerening a wider range of qualifations and it is proving to be very sucessful....often 'non academic' kids switch back on to study when they can see that they can succeed.....often they are kinsethtic learners and need to show they can do stuff practically, rather than write stuff down. When they see they can succeed their behaviour improves beyond recognition. I have worked with lad who struggled like hell at A level but would have shone at a more prctical City and Guilds type course.

By chasing the degree, and only valuing the degree we are undermining other forms of qualification that suit other people and other skills.

If I have a leak in my pipes I don't want someone who can read Proust, or frame a picture, or explain X ray diffraction patterns I want a well trained plumber! Dh's uncle (ex plumber) has just retired to Spain, I will still be working at his age, who is the fool in this family I wonder??

cross posted, but my argument still applies. it is a failing of a levels and always has been that it is possible to get top marks (3 As) without having any ability in english whatsoever simply by taking 3 sciences.