UK education; what is the REAL problem?

[Isitmebut]

First of all let us first establish that there is a problem, despite a huge investment by the State that more than doubled the education budget from 1997 and borrowed huge amounts of money on ‘the never, never’, to build/improve schools via he Private Finance Initiative (PFI), that will annually eat into the Education budget for decades to come.

“England’s young adults trail the world in literacy and maths”.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24433320

"Young adults in England have scored among the lowest results in the industrialised world in international literacy and numeracy tests.

A major study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows how England's 16 to 24-year-olds are falling behind their Asian and European counterparts".

England is 22nd for literacy and 21st for numeracy out of 24 countries.


And just to confirm that our school leavers international test results are not a statistical quirk, and that they are indeed NOT ready to go out in the world to make their mark, for year after year the CBI (and even supermarkets) having been pleading with the government to ensure that our children leave full time education, fit for employment purpose.

“More than four in 10 employers are being forced to provide remedial training in English, maths and IT amid concerns teenagers are leaving school lacking basic skills, it emerged today.”
www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9322525/School-leavers-unable-to-function-in-the-workplace.html


Now while I kind of understood the pro EU Labour’s motives in relaxing the teaching of foreign languages, as it both boosted school leave tables and their objective was to boost inward economic migration, not give our children opportunities to work abroad – but how can we allow millions of children, go out to a world needing an ever more semi skilled and skilled workforce, without even the basics in English and Maths?


The Unemployment figures of under 24 year olds from 2004 on highlight two major points; using the May to July quarters in each year, we can see that in 2004 we already had 580,000 under 24’s unemployed. But during what we was told was an economic boom, by the pre crash 2007 high, that figure had reached 711,000 – and by the 2010 general election, a few years into the recession, Labour passed over to the coalition 921,000 under 24-year olds unemployed – a national scandal.


And by putting the CBI reports, employer anecdotal reports on migrant education skills/motivation, and the international literacy and numeracy league table evidence TOGETHER, we have a failed a whole generation of our children.


And don’t take my word for it, when a troubling report discloses many of our young feel ‘they have nothing to live for’.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25559089

“As many as three quarters of a million young people in the UK may feel that they have nothing to live for, a study for the Prince's Trust charity claims.”


So what ARE the problems, nature, nurture and/or the wrong teaching methods – where the combination of a Labour government and Left Wing educationalist were a toxic mix?


This article a while back by the respected Max Hastings on a report by Miriam Gross, published by the Centre for Policy Studies, makes interesting reading.
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1296126/Ideologues-illiteracy-MAX-HASTINGS-terrible-damage-wrought-schools-Left-wing-educationalists.html


I may not agree with everything Michael Gove suggests, but what is clear is that for the time spent in full time education, those under 24-year olds education was not working for them and the facts, figures and results PROVES that – so Gove has to both challenge and make changes to the ideological bent of the educational establishment. IMO.

[Isitmebut]

From my opening post on this thread, it was clear due to various education measurements, and the increasing 16-24-year olds unemployed from 2004 indicating our young were having trouble competing for British jobs, it was clear there was a problem with our education system, starting with the basics.

A simple workplace study confirmed what employers have been telling us for years, the majority of children leave school at 16+ lacking in basic e.g. over half those at secondary school cannot take £64.23 from £100, and get the right answer, often by more than £1.
//www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10631728/Pupils-cannot-count-out-change-due-to-poor-maths-skills.html

“A study by Nationwide finds that more than half of secondary school pupils struggle to work out change in their heads, prompting claims that maths lessons are leaving them "unequipped for everyday situations"


As Labour’s recent Shadow Education bod Tristram Hunt acknowledged, schools were no longer challenging our children enough and seemed to leave it up to the children what they learned, and of course even those more capable often chose the path with least effort, taking subjects they ‘like’ with possibly too few skills to take to employers and improve their chances of employment. Too many other children see an X-Factor audition as their main hope of success in the future, rather than put the effort in at school.
www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/labour-admits-great-crime-on-education-tristram-hunt-says-his-party-encouraged-schools-to-aim-too-low--and-pupils-paid-the-price-9053693.html

Michael Gove realised that our children had to compete with a global talent pool for British jobs never mind anywhere else, and not just from the EU, so was trying to reform a teaching establishment that whether they realised it or not, was generally encouraging mediocrity.

The pace of Mr Gove’s reforms were clearly too fast for some within education, but the first results of many of his reforms were due this year, and it appears more children are attempting the harder more commercial skills.

An encouraging start on a ‘quality subjects over league table pass quantity’, and If the education system prepares our Primary School children with better analytical skills, those that chose to study the likes of maths at Secondary school, should find it easier to study for GCSE’s and hopefully ‘A’ level exams – as in a semi to skilled 21st century workplace, the more bringing those types of skills to the workplace, the better their chances of employment.


“A-level results: Michael Gove should be pleased with today's marks”

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/alevel-results-michael-gove-should-be-pleased-with-todays-marks-9669381.html

“If Michael Gove had been around today as Education Secretary he would have been chuffed by this year’s results.”

“He always said he would not be worried by being the man not to preside over a ever-upward trend in results, and indeed saw the percentage of A* and A grade passes fall during his time at the helm.”

“He would also have taken great pleasure in the rise in the take-up of science and maths subjects: maths is the most popular subject, partly due to the controversy over GCSE marking of English two years ago, leaving hundreds of students without the grades to pursue it as their A-level option.”

[Isitmebut]

After Labour doubled to tripled the Education budget, including what was it, 200,000 new teaching assistants AND borrowed heavily via the PFI schemes to build new schools - and the results I opened with was the result - are you saying only the rich kids benefited from all that, or is there another reason for their nationally worrying results/unemployment?

[WytebordMarker]

The rich kids do not need help. It is the poor that do.

[Isitmebut]

mummytime …. Although your link is a dodgy BBC sports page, I believe I saw that headline, but didn’t read the source of the report.

But does this mean from the credible sources that produced those reports in my links around 2010 to now (throughout this thread), after 4-years of tighter school inspections and education reforms under the coalition, standards are ALREADY getting better?????

[Isitmebut]

Thegambler ….I do not need to be from Conservative Head Office to understand ‘all is not well in the Kingdom’, hence my opening post, which is basically the product of a left wing teaching establishment, combined with a left wing government = a lower educational bar set by both, with no checks, so little Julian doesn’t get an advantage to dear little Johnny in education (whether Johhny turns up and/or concentrates or not) and BIG Johhny don’t feel inferior to Julian on sports day as all our darling'ss must feel ‘winners’.

Yet in 2004, seven years into a Labour government, during a global boom, the UK had 580,000 16-24 year olds without work, and that same government rather than address the issue of their suitability for work, decided it was more ‘in touch’ to embrace immigration to get the vacancies filed – yet it is the Conservatives who are the ‘nasty’ party with no grip on reality.

Regarding the terrible PFI schemes Labour contractually entered into to build schools on the ‘never, never’ paying extortionate charges coming out of Education (and NHS) budgets for decades to come – that the Coalition have tried to renegotiate on the taxpayers behalf – run by me why Osborne is to blame for that particular Labour mess up again, with facts please.

[thegambler]

Re reading the OP it reminds me of my 1980's school days and leaving school. For all Isitmebuts rail against Labour (from Consevative central office going off previous posts) it seems like a problem from long before '97, a one that beyond Labour building schools through the cock-eyed PFI schemes, a scheme that Osbourne has merely dressed up and carried on with, they done little with and Gove is likely to make worst.

[mummytime]

Well What about this then.
UK second best in Europe!
Is our education system broken?

[Isitmebut]

May I suggest that looking at the 'standards' on my opening, which were the product of the policies of oone administration for 13-years, it is neither "vote catching" or "short termism" even if policies change within those 13-years.

Furthermore if money was the issue, the doubling to trebling of the Education (and other ministerial) budgets would have produced Einsteins not the results above.

Bad parents, bad children, the education 'system', grade inflation, usefulness of subjects encouraged, teacher individual high to low standards, did 200,000 plus new teacher assistants tend to do the work for children who didn't learn?

IMO they are all factors, and what is clear is that OVERALL it wasn't working for our children, with fewer unskilled jobs available and employers of those jobs complain children are not even equipped for them.

[thegambler]

Could the problem be similar to that in most areas, little political will to look beyond vote catching and the short termism that brings, allied with governments lack of desire to make amazon,vodafone et al to pay a realistic ammount of tax ?

[springchickennolonger]

Imo education is "failing" because schools are being asked to undertake too many things that should not be in their remit and are consequently unable to devote time and energy into what they should be doing: that's teaching kids.

[dotnet]

Well, I was blown away by how good and conscientious and involved the teachers were at my dd's comprehensive school. The main difficulty as far as I could see was the tearaway element among the kids who disrupted classes up to the year 11 age group, after which sixth form was plain sailing. The school did have a sin bin for dealing with them, but those kids really bothered my daughter... it would have been far worse for the decent kids in lower streams who wanted to learn. Even more sin binners in those. They messed things up for the well behaved kids.
Over my daughter's year group, there were 250 students.
She told me at some point - when she was in the sixth form, perhaps - that she knew of FIVE boys in her former year group who were now in prison, or had just got out.
Having said all that, the bright children in good state schools who achieve three As at A level are MORE LIKELY to get a First at university than the three-A children at private schools.
The reason? They've been well taught, but not spoon fed.
The system isn't broken. And what would be absolute anathema would be a return to the eleven-plus system.
I speak as an eleven-plus failure myself. I still feel bad about myself because of that childhood failure; it was a really unkind piece of social engineering (and artificially weighted in favour of boys).

[Isitmebut]

Well we tried doubling to near trebling the education budget over 13-years, which included around 200,000 new teaching assistants to give 'extra support', and the results were as given in my opening post.

We therefore need to see if Gove's policies do better, as in a global jobs market, just looking inward and saying how clever we are using grade inflation to pretend our dears are ready for employment, when we had around 580,000 16-24-years olds unemployed in 2004 and close to 1 million in 2010, isn't an option now, never mind back then.

[LilyBolero]

I think the REAL problem in education is too much tinkering at the top, and not enough basics at the bottom.

Fwiw, I think primary education today is legions better than when I was at school - my kids are knowledgeable, intelligent and interested in the world, with the fundamentals well in place.

Where I think the education goes wrong is this constant comparison with, say, the Far East, and thinking 'what we need to do is push the brightest harder'. Gove's plan to differentiate between A and A (via the new numbers system) at GCSE is evidence of this really. There is no need - A shows that you are more than ready to move on to A Level studies, and that is all that is necessary at this point.

In the Far East, they are striving to adopt a more Western-style education, because they recognise the value of a creative education. Take Singapore - they are actively trying to emulate UK style education, and will still aim to send their brightest students to Oxbridge, to learn among bright, creative people. They are realising that rote learning millions of facts will not produce the creative thinkers that a modern economy requires.

Where we fall down is at the lower end - every child should come out of school both literate and numerate, and is painfully obvious this does not happen. And my family from Singapore cite this as being the problem with the UK education system, and point out that in a modern economy, people need these basic skills in order to be employable.

So my remedy would be to stop worrying about the top 1-2%, just give them the conditions to blossom, but focus more at that bottom 10% who need the extra support in their basic education.

[Isitmebut]

We have tube drivers looking to close down London again, destroying national output and inconveniencing many millions of commuters as the union want to run THAT business - and now the teachers again, having
had a huge doubling plus of budgets/resources thrown at education before the crash for mediocre results mentioned in the first post, now discussing to strike over ‘pay, conditions and government policies’.

Clearly education under the last government wasn’t working for the students, their job mobility prospects, or the basic standards needed by most employers – yet the N.U.T. want to challenge a coalition change having gone for 13-years in what appears to have been in the wrong direction??

Join the Private Sector people, where many had no ‘pay, conditions, or jobs’ over the great recession and they are always judged on RESULTS.


“Teachers' union to hear calls for strike in June”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-27036063

“The National Union of Teachers is to hear calls for strike action in England and Wales this summer term.”


“Delegates at both conferences are expected to condemn the government's introduction of performance-related pay and changes to pensions.”


“The motion to be debated by the NUT conference in Brighton calls for co-ordination with other unions, but says it would be willing to take strike action alone.”

“Last month the NUT staged a one-day strike, without the support of the other biggest teachers' union, the NASUWT.”

“There are GCSE and A-level exams scheduled to be taken on the first three days of the week of proposed strike action.”

“But the union's general secretary Christine Blower says strike action "will not disrupt exams" and that any staff who need to supervise an exam will be given exemptions from taking part in industrial action.”

“The conference motion also calls for a lobby of Parliament on 10 June and a broad-based campaign to challenge changes to pay and pensions and the government's education policy.”

[Matthias]

the problem with education is that Governments throw money at pointless cosmetic fiddling whereas the only way to make a difference is to cut class sizes to 15 - 20 pupils and invest in teachers. That is the only similarity to public schools we need!

Gove with his bright ideas about longer days and shorter holidays (look at the holiday breaks the independent sector get) he just hasn't thought it through. Hundreds of people will lose jobs, namely all those who provide after school activities - swimming,football, judo etc drama, dance, etc: not to mention the end of beavers/rainbows, cubs/brownies, scouts\guides etc because children will be too tired at the end of a 10 hour day to participate.

[PlainBrownEnvelope]

Is it me Yes, I know. I agree with you. Read my first sentence. I live in Hong Kong, and my comment regarding schools equipping children with the basics was therefore in reference to Hong Kong schools.

Given that I live in China, I imagine I've met far more Chinese mothers than you have and they are not all Tiger Moms, far from it. However, the schools still manage to equip kids who lack parental aspiration with basic skills.

[motherstongue]

Toad - according to my DS school, students who go on to study Latin/Greek/Classics at Uni are the students who will most likely find employment. They said that statistically Latin scholars have a degree that many employers value and therefore few graduate with no real prospects.
My DS is very able in Latin and Greek, much to his teachers' annoyance, he doesn't want to study any form of classics at Uni! He wants to do POLITICS..... HE HE HE. I don't know why I'm laughing, I don't want him to be a politician.

[Isitmebut]

PlainBrownEnvelope…I and no doubt the larger employers here who complain about our finished ‘product’ e.g. supermarkets, will have trouble reconciling two of your last statements, starting with the ability to provide an acceptable CV and cover letter in order to OBTAIN experiential learning;

“However, in terms of basic skills, they do very well, and it's those basic skills that make people employable.”


“You need a foundation of basic knowledge to be able to comprehend the next conceptual step, especially in maths/ science subjects where the UK is very weak. Knowledge has a value.”

Every indication (many proven via various links in this thread) is that generally speaking our children are not receiving the basic skills for the work place, and heaven help if anyone asks them a history question, unless you want to know the colonial and other ‘wrong doings’ of the British Empire, or that Winston Churchill is a dog promoting insurance.

I’ll give you that we may excel in the ‘soft’ subjects, but arguably the likes of sociology is not a skill requirement for the lower mass production, higher tech/skilled private sector job markets in the 21st century whose salaries 'we' aspire to.

If there had been joined up education policies rather than the push for grade inflation in soft subjects, maybe someone can tell me why compulsory foreign languages were dropped, by a government who INSISTS that we stay within the EU and preaches social mobility?

P.S. A the Chinese economy with over a billion people looks to move ever further up the skilled job ‘value chain’ and they lose manufacturing jobs that are either moving to cheaper emerging market production countries, or back to the west, if you haven’t bumped into that many ‘Chinese Mothers’ yet, I suspect you will sooner than later.

[Isitmebut]

Jellyandcake…regarding your main suggestion “I truly believe that if they only made one single change and that change was to cut class sizes in half, a vast number of problems would be solved”.

Unfortunately for Mr Gove, parents and children, the consequences of our economic migrant policy from 2004, while building schools via private sector money/public sector debt, that will eat into education budgets for decades to come, is unlikely to make drastic reductions in class sizes anytime soon, based on the overall debts (and current low interestrate £50 billiona year debt service costs) of this nation.
www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8779598/Private-Finance-Initiative-where-did-all-go-wrong.html

As to “but Gove is dismantling the education system and making it far, far worse and unmanageable”, well I’m guessing that is the view from the teachers who don’t want change, or any other public sector body it seems, but looking at the current results it is hardly obvious to many that he is ‘dismantling’ a system that was heading in the right direction.

There are no quick fixes to any of this nations problems, but it would be nice if the public sector was more receptive to ideas that didn’t involve throwing £billions over £billions of unreformed taxpayers money at it, as the skills of our workforce will massively contribute in the decades to come in both the paying down the £1.3 trillion of this nation and social mobility/employment prospects, so no pressure there then.

[OrangeMochaFrappucino]

As a teacher, I honestly think the biggest problem is class sizes. 30 children in a class (or more) is simply too many. If class sizes could be halved, children could be helped much more intensively with literary and numeracy in particular. Marking and feedback could be much more in depth and valuable. Behaviour would be less of a disruptive issue. Gove's changes are wrong , misguided and unfounded. It's fine to say that things need to change or that previous govts failed, but Gove is dismantling the education system and making it far, far worse and unmanageable. I truly believe that if they only made one single change and that change was to cut class sizes in half, a vast number of problems would be solved. I appreciate it's not practical as there is so much pressure on school places as it is, but the poster who said what would we want an education system to look like from scratch made me think and that seemed the most obvious change I would make.

[PlainBrownEnvelope]

Actually, the whole Tiger Mom thing is a bit of a myth, or at least the fact that it's ubiquitous is a myth. In Hong Kong (where I live) there are still a lot of parents who are not engaged in the education system, don't hugely value it, and don't send their kids to crammers and weekend classes (Hk had to make schooling mandatory to make enrolment close to 100%), yet HK still has the highest literacy and numeracy rates in the world because that's what the schools focus on. Even the schools in low opportunity areas with the least well qualified teachers do okay in respect of that. Now, the fact that HK schools totally fail in critical thinking/ team work/ experiential learning is a whole other issue, and one which is fairly widely recognised. However, in terms of basic skills, they do very well, and it's those basic skills that make people employable.

Whilst I think that learning to be a learner is important, possibly UK schools have gone too far that way, and neglected the basics. You cant google everything. You need a foundation of basic knowledge to be able to comprehend the next conceptual step, especially in maths/ science subjects where the UK is very weak. Knowledge has a value.

[Toadinthehole]

A comment on a characteristic of British education, which I haven't found replicated in other places I've lived in.

Academic versus vocational

This is the idea that a child is one or the other. It underpinned the grammar / secondary modern system, and before that provided the reason why children at the public schools spent years learning pointless Latin and Greek. Go back still further, and you find it in Plato's Republic.

Now it seems that vocationally orientated children should go into trades, while academically orientated children should study whatever at university.

But in other countries, I suspect people would point out unless a child's literacy standards are deficient, there should be no reason why he or she shouldn't go to university. They might add that not many university courses are "academic" anyway, except for things like philosophy, Classics, or history, and anyway there is no point in studying courses such as those because they don't lead to any decent employment. They might also add that a trade might be better for a bright child anyway, because the pay is higher.

They might even add that labelling a child as "vocational" is just another way of writing them off for useful employment and as such is a positively unhelpful concept. They might - if they were historically minded - comment that it is perhaps a hangover from the class system.

[Isitmebut]

LLLjkk…..you are correct about weekend and school holiday crammers in the Far East, but that is more of a reflection on their higher standards/competition out there, ‘Chinese mothers’ are well known throughout the Far East countries they now live, and even in the UK if you get to know one.lol

But we seem more content to make excuses, yet link after link shows that our numeracy and literacy stands are falling here, never mind on a global basis – as when nearly half of children cannot give change of £100 in a decimal system, after buying just one item, when we had Pounds, shillings AND pence (AND pesky half-pennies) to get our little grey cells around, come on, enough is enough.

Forget ‘the global race’ for education, jobs and economic growth and prosperity, we will soon be making excuses for why our children can’t write their names properly on their GSCE papers - and making singing and dancing compulsory to try and match our children’s ‘aspirations’, to appear on, never mind win, The Voice or The X Factor.

THE MONEY WAS THERE for the children in most of these tests, so the answer is in the combination of our education system, teachers (maybe that may have come through that system themselves and find it tough to teach/improve upon what they never learned), parental guidance, and our little darlings who would rather be doing something else. Bless.

[Bonkerssometimes]

I think the problem is that the education fails to address the needs of the less bright pupils, so they leave school without even a basic benchmark of education.

Bring back rote learning. It works.

[Bonkerssometimes]

There is a raving debate about the same question in Secondary education, although the OP heading is different. The discussion from page 15 is about what is wrong and how to fix it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/1996012-Fed-up-with-the-education-divide?pg=20