Some good points there Tim. Standards did indeed rise from 1870 onwards, date of the Education Act which made education for children compulsory – instead of going up chimneys and assisting their parents in homeworking. The main reason for the Act was because UK was falling behind in international competitiveness due to the poor quality of education of its workforce (ring any bells today?) – And not out of political concern for the welfare of the working classes.
As for educational standards – these have fallen through introduction of wider but more shallow study resulting in lots of relatively worthless certificates. It does of course have the social benefit of enabling many more kids to have a qualification – and that is important in not making the less academically bright kids feel they have been relegated to the junk heap. The important thing is for all kids to have an appropriate education – we haven't yet got this right but I think we are making progress. The most important objective of course, is to enable the politicians to crow about raising standards
When I was doing A-levels, most of us did 3 whilst the super brain boxes tackled 4 and very few of us got top grades in all subjects. Whereas now, it's not uncommon to attain top grades in 10 A-levels – call me old-fashioned but even allowing for the improvement in teaching standards (which has undoubtedly happened) the brainpower of our kids hasn't improved that much! So could it be that standards have indeed fallen?
A couple of years ago I was looking through an old book of GCE O level physics papers and recognised one question from the past – very nostalgic but thought no more about it. Unexpectedly, a few days later I was looking through some current A-level questions and blow me down, there was the old O-level question now masquerading at A level. Draw your own conclusions.
It's probably not as bad as it sounds because the standards are all relative and employers aren't stupid – they know which universities/subjects/GCSEs are worthwhile. And of course, a five-minute conversation with most prospective employees tells you all you need to know in addition. But of course, we do need to raise our game in mathematics/science/technicals compared to the international competition.
Agree with what you have outlined here, spot on.
To add further based on my personal studies, referring back to the class system which is still prevalent with us today has much to do with falling standards and abilities.
UK has had a shortage of engineers compared to Germany and Japan. This discrepancy is still with us today. I have written about this before; the study of latin, the arts and music was popular and glorified by the elite. Anyone who worked using their hands and got them dirty were working class.
Those who studied the arts and the classics were the upper crust white collar clean cut well to do gentlemen.
German and Japanese had four to eight time as many engineers compared to UK.
These ratios could be changed if wages and salaries of engineers rose compared to those studying and employed in the soft arts. Sadly, if one looks at steel metal sheet workers salaries compared to how hard their work is, explains much in the way of why there are very few English labourers in these industries and those who do apply for such jobs are from Eastern European countries.
These issues go hand in hand to explaining British Leyland's experience and decline of their poor model designs, poor R&D research and reliability of the cars they produced. If one doesn't invest one can't deliver. Nothing to do with trade union disputes which came much later.
I suspect Trade Unions could have played a pivotal role if they were able to judge numeration packages awarding them to desired skills instead of poor management no doubt would have yielded better results. That stupid moo moo and the Conservatives obviously will tell you otherwise.
The days of the passionate individual inventor working in his shed, producing a world beating product is behind us. Barking about our past similarly whilst coming out of our mouths, may as well come out of our rear. No gas in tank. All talk and whaffle with no substance.
Trade with the rest of the World they say but the big question is trade what? What are we selling? Well if the pound falls further we'll be able to compete on price. That's a losing strategy imo.
So coming back to EDUCATION and what is the government doing now. Promoting exorbitant universities that deliver non functional theoretical students who are not much cop and spending money on grammar schools who produce a bit of the upper crust bodies who don't like to get their hands dirty.
Well spoken and presented young bodies selling and producing what exactly???
I would promote standard schools, raising standards and re-introduce apprenticeship and vocational studies with polytechnics and as John Major said go back to basics of producing real products and world beating top class inventions that simplify and benefit human kind.
