Should we care that 50% of state schools didn't produce any medicine applicants in 3 years?

[legallady]

Well if no one from those schools wanted to study medicine then maybe not but if they are not achieving the grades to be able to apply or are not being given the correct advice then maybe we should.

Certainly it seems wrong that half of applicants in that time frame came from independent and grammar schools. It suggests that our qualified doctors a few years down the line will come from a very narrow demographic - similar to our lawyers and politicians - and that can't be good for our society.

What (if anything) is going wrong?

titchy no, it doesn't assume that - psychology and law useful for all kinds of general roles such as management and marketing, and those should of course be factored in to the required numbers. However, STEM subjects are also useful for general roles too - more STEM grads are needed in teaching, politics, journalism, and management etc etc.

I agree STEM and arts can co-exist happily - but the balance of numbers in each camp still needs to be addressed through the education system.

titchy, there are probably lots of more clued up/better connected students who do know that a law or psychology degree needn't be viewed solely as the first step on the way to a professional career in the law or psychology. However, I really do think many students don't grasp that while they're at school/sixth form college. They want the security and status of a professional career and they believe that they must start studying Law, Psychology, Accountancy or Business Studies as early as possible and keep on going over the same stuff through GCSE, A level and degree course to get to the end goal.

In fact, it is often better to avoid specialising like that until much later as the broad knowledge you get from a wider range of GCSEs and A levels and a non-vocational degree subject are valued very highly by potential employers. That's the message that doesn't get through to young people from families with no background in the professions/academia/any graduate level work.

I used to work in a role that involved a lot of contact with new or recent psychology graduates. What I saw over and over again was that they had taken Psychology A level, enjoyed it, got onto a Psychology degree course and then spent years (in some cases 10 years+) trying to get onto clinical psychology training, which is NHS funded and where places are very limited. Some of them actually said to me that if they'd known how hard it would be to reach that goal they would have chosen something different in the first place.

In my profession we are seriously concerned about the number of STEM graduates who can't write to save their lives, and who lack forensic analytical skills. This is becoming a serious issue (for us). Not just in this country, either - I'm part of global profession wide initiatives to try and address the issue.

But I return to my main point which is that the elites don't see their role - or their childrens' roles - as filling the gaps presently open in the machinery of the economy or being back-ups for those positions. Their expectations don't just include high salaries, they also include fulfillment, being allowed to choose their own path (self determination) etc. They don't see themselves as drones to be deployed - this week we need chemists, so kids will study chemistry whether they want to or not, whether they are even going to be any good at it or not; next week everyone has to code, the week after it's engineering and sod personal preference. They see themselves as people with a variety of skills and abilities, and a wide range of ambitions. It amazes me that so many ordinary people like us are happy to play their game and for our kids to do the same, and regard ourselves as economic units and nothing else. Like I said - there is a difference between living and existing. The elites expect to lead lives, they are pushing the rest of us towards mere existence (in service of their fulfilling lives).

I have read it all now. Hindley YOI In Wigan is providing an Education , that is better than many Secondary Schools. The OFSTED report stated that teaching was Outstanding and that behaviour was "Very Good" . What that says about some mainstream secondary schools , I dread to think.

It does though reveal that the lack of standards or the aspirations of students can partly be blamed on the schools themselves.

Rabbit, do you think those STEM grads who can't write would have been able to write better if they'd done an English or History degree? No, they would have simply failed their courses, because the ability or inability to write is developed at a much earlier stage in our education system, before we specialise. They are the people who in previous generations wouldn't have needed to write because there was plenty of manual work to go around. Certainly our education system needs to improve on multiple levels, to address the changing needs of our society.

On your second point, by definition, we can't all be elite ... society needs people to work in shops, sweep floors, test computer software and perform routine clinical tests, and, ideally, to find happiness and fulfillment doing those roles, whether it be at work, or outside of it through other interests they can afford to pursue.

Ultimately something needs to be the decider of who does what. Currently the decider is self-indulgence, indifferent advice, naivety and ability to pay. Instead it should be employer-led demand and performance-based selection ... so that those that want to do psychology or journalism have to prove they're better than the many other kids that want to do the same, or else choose something else.

Better to have 10k elite psychology graduates than 100k mediocre ones. If you're going to be mediocre at something, then at least make it something that is useful.

R Euphoria
When I was at Uni there was the running joke that Graduate recruitment forms for engineers were multiple choice - because they could not string a sentence together.
That was in the mid 80's

AllMimsy
I did a Geography degree. Because I liked Geography and was good at it.
I had no idea what I wanted to do after other than not work in an office.
FAIL
I'm an accountant now
BUT
Accountancy A Level and Degree are actually impediments to being a good accountant because they narrow the skill set.

The barristers on both sides in a recent court case I was in had not done Law as their first degrees.

Some professional careers are best done as a second degree after a subject you love as your first degree.

oi Greengrow, where are you?, I'd be interested to know what you are getting your kids to do

Medics are different as its more a vocation than a career

neither of my kids are planning to follow either DH or I into our income paths calling them careers would be a tad arrogant IMHO

Advice that everyone should do at least 1 science at A level whether they want to or not, that anyone capable of getting decent grades should do triple science GCSE whether they want to or not, and that arts or humanities A levels restrict opportunity (a viewpoint recently voiced by the sec of state for education) is not so much indifferent as blatantly wrong headed.

To bring it back to medicine - obviously prospective doctors should go to medical school. Equally obviously everyone who wants to do medicine and is good enough to do medicine should be supported in their ambition whatever income bracket their parents occupy. But if half the state schools in the country are sending kids to medical schools, as a proportion, that's fine. Every school in the country doesn't have to send kids to medical school for there to be enough doctors. And this continual placing of medicine on a pedestal as the only subject worth applauding or worrying about is ludicrous. If we didn't have enough medical students to fill the places, that would be a problem. But we do. There are other fields (some scientific some not) in which ordinary but talented kids are experiencing far greater barriers to participation and those are the ones we should be more worried about if our goal is a society which offers equality of opporutnity to everyone with the requisite talent for whatever it is.

Talkin - geography degrees (depending on the focus) are clearly increasingly important to the well being of society. It's a terrible shame that many kids will not get the opportunity to study geography after Y10 because of the emphasis on chemistry, physics and biology. DD1 is doing Geog AS and loves it. DD2 won't even be able to do geog GCSE and it's a real shame. I think, anyway. DS preferred to do computer science and that's fine because it was his choice.

It is very much the responsibility of schools to talk to pupils about making the right decisions for their future, be that choice of GCSE and A-level or work experience or extra-curricular. It is quite wrong to think that children should be expected to take sole responsibility for research into those decisions on their own.

I still see no evidence for the assertion that people with arts and humanities degrees from Cambridge will accrue more skills which are useful to them than people with STEM degrees from Imperial?

I would say though that teaching of sciences in schools is often not great. I know several science teachers, teaching science up to A'level who do not hold a degree in science, but have qualified as science teachers after doing a 9 month subject knowledge enhancement course before starting a PGCE. I also know several science teachers whose subject knowledge is stretched to the limits by the current A'level course and who are intimidated by the brighter students. Now, I realise this does not apply to all science teachers and there are some excellent ones out there, but whilst I was lecturing we would frequently find students with apparently good A'level grades had not grasped some basic concepts in chemistry before they arrived to us. It is simply not feasible to undo all the damage caused by inadequate preparation for university level study during a 4 year course.

Magrat - poor quality teaching that leaves students with gaps in their knowledge is not confined either to science subjects or to the UK. Teachers are poorly paid versus alternative career paths for similar qualifications in many countries. The trend away from textbooks (which at least give pupils a framework for self-study) does little to address this issue.

Bonsoir, possibility, but I can only speak for the subjects I have experience of. I know many English, history, arts teachers at least have degrees in the subjects they teach. However, I know several chemistry and physics teachers with poor degrees in law, history, animal nutrition and forensic "science" (imo one of the least useful degrees around) who have completed "subject knowledge enhancement" courses before doing secondary science PGCEs.

I'd agree with the analysis that it is not either/or. We need a good distribution of graduates across the board. I don't think being a science graduate is better, or worse than being a humanities or arts graduate, but take exception to the reverse being implied with no evidence.

MFL has some pretty ropy teachers and an even ropier curriculum.

I certainly don't adhere to the "arts are superior" school of thought myself. Personally I think that A-levels set up a false dichotomy and that, at 18, all pupils need both verbal and quantitative education still.

Magrat
My school, being gels, private selective had ALL relevant degrees for A Level teaching
and utterly crap at it some of them were

I have a degree in Geography.
That neither makes me a geographer, nor a competent teacher in that subject.

When I went on Uni filed trips to the continent, my blag it through languages based on holidays, were much more use than the A levels of others
I was taken to task by the professor of Geography at Nice University for my poor French Grammar
I floored him by pointing out that my English grammar could be shite as well.

Seriously : skill at teaching has ferk all to do with skill at learning.
People on my courses say that I make audit interesting and relevant.

DH and I today (over the nth bottle of wine) worked out how to apply his skills to enthuse those that selective education wishes did not exist : and it will be intellectually satisfying for he and I to work out the module, the teachers to approach it and the kids to achieve it : job done - economy saved

"I know several chemistry and physics teachers with poor degrees in law, history, animal nutrition .."

Exactly Magrat, and that is why we need to encourage more pupils to study science, to help bridge that gap. We need a surplus of STEM graduate, enough to fill STEM jobs and related jobs such as science teaching. We need more of those students who naturally excel at written and verbal communication to go into STEM subjects ... if they have STEM skills as well as good communication skills they will have fantastic career opportunities, and extra financial incentives to go into teaching if that is their calling.

I have not read all this thread just the first 2 pages. I think one issue is that Universities want so much more extra curricular activities and relevant work experience to populate the dreaded personal statement form.

Therefore some comprehensive students will not stand a chance vs some grammar school peers, and definitely not against the private peers.

Yes - but they won't go into teaching unless the pay and social status is comparable to what they could get elsewhere. Teaching should be hard to get into and hard to stay in unless teachers are really good - but the quid pro quo for that is that it should be very well paid. I understand that this is how it is in Finland and their children consistently top the world league tables , with nary a private school in sight.

Yes, I agree teaching should be a better paid profession. However, if there were more STEM graduates, then that would inevitably lead to more STEM teachers, especially with the added financial incentives available.

At the moment, STEM teachers command high salaries in the private sector, and so can afford to turn their noses up at state sector bursaries. Increasing their number would balance that out.

teaching should be a better paid profession.
BUT
qualified people are not by defintion good teachers

DH
inspires people into taking degrees in a subject that he did not do at GCE

Bill Gates had made his money out of an area that did not exist when he was at college.

The point is that teaching and learning are not the same thing
BUT
FAR MORE IMPORTANTLY
All learning should be treated equally : which has been the crass failing in the UK in the last 30 years

A good chemistry physics or maths teacher can have the choice of jobs and will walk away from a school where there are problems eg behaviour, poor facilities, being blamed for poor grades and students are being taught by people who do not have a thorough background in the topics.

Potential medics need the support for the UKCAT, BMAT, interview as well as very high grades for A level and this does not come from a series of supply teachers.
The other factor is independent schools taking the high achievers from year 11 with the offers of scholarships and bursaries which happened at DS's school.

A lot of people who go onto medicine from state schools have gone to private 6th forms because they did so well, that they got bursaries etc for their A-levels. What section of the data do these kids get put into?

Interestingly My Open University Tutor linked to me on You Tube The BBC Documentary from last year " Who Gets all the Best jobs" . It is worth watching as there is a large section about "internships" or getting work experience in medicine or Hospitals . The programme also talks how difficult it is for children from families of modest incomes to even have aspirations for any "Professional" Career not just Medicine.

Only just got round to watching this. The closing credits tell me it was made in 2010 by Fiona Millar, Mrs Alistair Campbell. Her conclusion: after 18 years of Labour education policy, the problem is not us it's Them.

Sorry Senua. The posting on You Tube said 2013. However, I think the programme is even more relevant now, because it is probably harder for students from lower economic circumstances to access Internships/ experience now than 2010!.

It was 13 years of Labour not 18 years !

Ooops, sorry: it was 13 years!

As one of the interviewees said, "everyone gets A Grades now." If grades were proper differentiators then this would go partway to resolving the problem.

'A good chemistry physics or maths teacher can have the choice of jobs and will walk away from a school where there are problems '

I don't think this is necessarily the case at all.Look at Mr Mitchell from educating Yorkshire.he has gradually gone to rougher and rougher schools.I hear he is shortly moving to one of the most disadvantaged schools in the country.