There is a massive shortage of engineers in the UK and in the World. Even if one does not want to go into engineering many employers prefer someone with a technical education over many arts subjects. Goldman Sachs is keen recruiter of engineers.

It is cheaper to raise the standard of education at 18 to the old A and S levels of 30 years ago then extending university courses by another year to make up for a decline in standards. By reducing costs of university education by shortening it’s duration( from 3 to 4 yrs) may encourage poorer students to attend.

Peace.

Please accept my apologies. I was unaware of the existence of the fake DHG.

Given the confused circumstances, is it fair to ask Unity to delete my offending post? It’s no longer relevant and could be misconstrued to put either of us in bad light.

All the best.

“Graduates can expect to earn £100,000 more over their working life than those without a degree, says the chair of the review into university fees in England.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8401267.stm

The pecking order of average graduate salaries gives some insight into which degree subjects are in high demand:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/table-what-do-graduates-earn-1675502.html

The trouble with popular structure of 11-16 comprehensives feeding 6th form colleges is that in deprived areas the final year of the 11-16 schools is dominated by early school leavers who often have little commitment to education. For teens, peer group pressures often have a decisive influence on their post-school careers. Blunkett had that daft idea of home work classes at football stadiums which hardly catered for girls and my guess is that many parents would worry about young teens going to football stadiums on dark winter evenings but it was cheered on at the time.

Too much is made of failing selection in the 11+ exam. Nobel laureate Sir Peter Mansfield FRS failed his 11+ exam and left school at 15 to become an apprentice book-binder. He made his way to university through night-school. Sadly that route and taking part-time degrees while continuing to be employed are seldom there now:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/video/news/2009/10/08/pride-of-britain-sir-peter-mansfield-115875-21731467/

In the run-up to the 1997 elelction, Gordon Brown had that bright idea of a University for Industry (UfI) on the internet to fill the skills gap but that got screwed up by Blunkett too:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4311791.stm

Hope you’ve read what Unity has written and sure you’ll take that back.

Cheers.

I’m afraid that DHG currently has a personal troll with a major hard-on for him, who’s MO is spoofing Daniel and a few other regulars.

This is being worked on but, in the meantime, be aware that this is happening and that while I do my best on the whack-a-troll front, some of the crap will get through from time to time, until I can spot and kill it.

Huxley , who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology said it was selection at 11 or 13 followed by the rigour of O and A levels which meant when people started university level they commenced at a much higher level than any other country. Consequently people completed their doctorates by 24 or 25. In other countries people did not complete their doctorates until the late 20s or 30 yrs of age. As the most innovative work is often undertaken by people in the end of the Phd or first doctorate position, this gave British scientists and engineers several years lead over their rivals. The reduction in the standards when CSEs were merged with O levels to form GCSEs has resulted in our undergraduates in science and engineering losing their advantages.

The consequence of reducing the standards of A levels is that 3 year degrees have become 4 years if not even 5 yrs. This has increased the cost to the country and the undergraduate as university teaching costs more than school teaching.

American universities used to actively recruit out top Phd s because the standards of training in the UK were so much higher in this country.

If Britain re-created the rigour of A and S levels of 30 years ago it would help to produce the world class scientists and engineers we need to build up our industrial base to required to produce green technology. Britain used to have the best education system for producing the finest scientists and engineers in the World-The Industrial Revolution, Darwin, Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, the number of Nobel Prizes won, Turing and the development of computing, the number of patents awarded etc, etc. Perhaps we ought to look at the reasons for our past achievements?

As should be apparent from the discussion in comments, I’m no more enamoured of the New Labour approach to secondary education than I am Cameron’s.

The main features Cameron fails to consider are (1) that teaching is an over-subscribed profession in his ‘model’ countries, while here it is under-subscribed; and (2) the reason it is over-subscribed in those places is because it is an attractive job – as you point out, teachers in Finland have almost un-heard-of freedom to be creative and to innovate in the classroom, are acknowledged as expert professionals, and the good fortune to live where the country as a whole regards education as being of tremendous importance. In Britain, alas, these conditions do not really exist, although a lot of lip-service is paid to the importance of education here.

The ‘best brains’ in Britain, unfortunately for Cameron, are well aware that they can get more personal satisfaction, better pay, and better respect in other jobs. As long as Cameron fails to address why so few people want to be teachers, the only result his ‘brazenly elitist’ plan will have will be to chronically worsen the already dire shortage of teachers in the UK.

http://bellagerens.com/2010/01/18/raising-the-barriers-to-entry/

FWIW we can settle this issue. Admittedly there aren’t many but there some comprehensives which feature in this latest league table of the best achieving schools at A-level, a league that is otherwise dominated by selective and independent schools:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8439634.stm

Given the likely affluence of households able to afford the fees at independent schools and the selection by entrance exams of pupils attending maintained grammar schools, it’s hardly surprising that few comprehensive schools feature in the premier league but some do. Notice that Eton, in fact, is quite a way down the league table. Three maintained grammar schools in the London borough where I live achieved better average A-level results. Why pay the fees at independent schools if your children can get into the remaining 164 maintained grammar schools?

This post was mentioned on Twitter by mrpower: It’s only “the most socialist education system” if you start playing silly games with your definition of ‘socialist’. http://bit.ly/4CBlDX...

On the contrary – we’re still talking about a state-funded system that has a duty not to piss money down the drain on complete and utter shite, in much the same way that I take the view that the NHS shouldn’t piss public money away on homeopathy.

If people want a Steiner education for their offspring, they can still use their own money to pay for it.

The LEA involvement adds an unnecessary layer of expensive unaccountable beaurocracy and adds no value.

Not if you cull the central bureaucracy entirely and devolve authority entirely down to local level.

Regarding an adequate coverage of quality schools, I think you have to trust to the market, rather than local planning, to work this out.

Its not really planning I had in mind – more a brokerage role that responds to parental demand by facilitating introductions between purchasers and potential suppliers. Even markets need their wheels greasing every once in a while.

School independence – yes but encouraged to operate within local networks to facilitate comprehensive provision………Pedagogical diversity – yes, if supported by adequate evidence base for effectiveness. i.e. Steiners can fuck off for starters

I’m not sure you are totally on board with this concept of diversity and choice!!!! Like you, I’d cut off my right arm before I’d send my child to a Steiners school but others take a different view.

Role and composition of LEAs, which will retain responsibility for ensuring that pastoral standards in local schools are met

I’d prefer to see the licensing role undertaken by the body responsible for cashing the vouchers working in conjunction with the new inspectorate. Part of the role of ensuring pastoral standards should be the limitation of religious influence on teaching. The voucher is to be used to provide secular education, not religious indoctrination. The LEA involvement adds an unnecessary layer of expensive unaccountable beaurocracy and adds no value.

Regarding an adequate coverage of quality schools, I think you have to trust to the market, rather than local planning, to work this out. Of course there is no guarantee that every parent will be presented with the ideal school for their child in their locality but the choice will be much more meaningful than it is now.

School independence – yes but encouraged to operate within local networks to facilitate comprehensive provision. This could include having multiple specialist providers housed in existing school premises

Agreed.

And it could also allow the independent school to buy in specialist competencies from mobile teaching providers. So, for example, there may be insufficient demand from pupils wanting to learn Chinese to justify a full time teacher in a particular school, but there may be enough demand to run courses in a group of schools in a particular locality.

Finally, one of the keys to progress is a much more flexible and fluid system of testing and examination than currently prevails.

Yes – schools accepting pupils under the voucher system would not be permitted to charge additional fees and would have to ensure that things like their uniform policy do not place pupils from poorer backgrounds at a disadvantage.

What I’d also look at is including premiums in the voucher system that encourage schools to take on pupils who are, for various reasons, disadvantaged by their personal circumstances and/or background.

Schools taking on SEN pupils would attract a premium rate, although at least part of that premium would be tied to performance and would have to be refunded if the child fails to make adequate progress.

Any voucher system will need a degree of carrot and stick to ensure that suppliers take on disadvantaged children but don’t then take the money (and the piss) and fail to deliver in the expectation that because the there lower performance expectations attached to these kids, the school can get away with doing fuck all without anyone noticing.

Good engineers design what is the the most practical to build and maintain and that knowledge only comes from undertaking practical work. Many of the German tanks in WW2 were overly complicated , subjects to problem of deep snow and dust, broke down too frequently and were difficult to maintain. The Russian T34-delivered on the basics( firepower, armour , coped with the snow and dust( causes wear )and and speed) but was easy to repair and cheap to build. The Russian designers appreciated that in Russia, the vast distances means that fully equipped workshops would not be close by, so poorly educated tank crews would have to be able to do much of the repairs with basic equipment .
The AK 47 is also an example of good design. The engineer realised the AK47 had to be rugged;reliable when used by poorly skilled people with little or no access to repair worksops.

The Spitfire was a superb machine because it was possible to improve it’s performance throughout WW2 without massive re-design. The practical aspect of the design was probably because Mitchell had been apprenticed at the age of 16 to a locomotive works and therefore appreciated the importance of simplicity.
British engineering at it’s best was often because the performance of the finished product was matched by the simplicity of the elegance of it’s manufacture and operation.

One can only appreciate the importance of such aspects if one has had to build and repair the equipment. If we had the old system of crafstmen/technician/engineer or scientists( educated to degree standards and chartered), then people could to whatever heights they were capable of achieving.

The destruction of the grammar schools did much to destroy the eduation of many future scientists and engineers. Many of our top engineers studied at grammar schools. Crossman, likely many middle class Labour politicians had no technical or industrial experience .

A couple of queries:

Your “yes” to vouchers is presumably conditional on having removed the last vestiges of the class system from education? Presumably would go alongside measures like stopping schools charging fees (or mandating expensive and extensive as opposed to simple uniforms)?

And while I’m all for getting rid of religious assemblies, if we get rid of mandatory RE lessons, I’d want some content on beliefs of the major religions and philosophical arguments for and against the existence of God to be folded into citizenship lessons. Is that your intention?

What gets killed off…

Ofsted, SACREs (local boards that set mandatory RE curriculum), mandatory RE lessons and mandatory religious assemblies in all state schools.

What gets heavily revised…

Role and composition of LEAs, which will retain responsibility for ensuring that pastoral standards in local schools are met (e.g. child welfare, health and safety, appropriate governance arrangements, due diligence and keeping out the extremists and other fucknuts) via a licensing system plus provision of community schools, where parents exercise this choice, and as a fallback against school failures/closures.

LEA would also be responsible, at a strategic level, for ensuring that there is an adequate supply of places and sufficient diversity of provision to meet local needs, i.e. in area lacks a particular type of school/provider (say one specialising in the natural sciences) and there is demand for such a school then its down to LEA to advertise for a suitable provider. In essence the LEA is there, in part, to ensure that any gaps in supply are filled on a minimal interference basis, i.e. as a kind of broker/agent for parents wishing to exercise a choice that’s not currently available in their area.

If an independent school goes tits up, then the LEA steps in to guarantee all pupils at that school get an alternative place at, at least, a local community school.

LEA’s might also retain responsibility for some pan-system services such as Ed/Dev Psych referrals and remediation of exclusions, if adequate alternative options are not available.

Composition of LEA boards – 49% stakeholders (LAs, schools, etc.) 51% parents, with parental place to be filled by direct elections.

Vouchers – yes.

School independence – yes but encouraged to operate within local networks to facilitate comprehensive provision. This could include having multiple specialist providers housed in existing school premises, so what is now a large comp/academy could become a network of co-existing specialist schools based in a single building/site.

Pedagogical diversity – yes, if supported by adequate evidence base for effectiveness. (i.e. Steiners can fuck off for starters until the start teaching science instead of than woo).

Religious Instruction and assemblies – up to the school to determine provision according to character.

National Curriculum – pared back to setting general content only. Delivery and pedagogical approach determined by schools.teachers. RE to be incorporated into the National Curriculum within a broad-based ‘humanities’ course that includes philosophy, critical thinking, civics, etc.

That’s been the pain of the last few years, they’ve been pissing and moaning from the wings, taking pot shots with no need to back owt up but as election time nears they have to start putting more concrete ideas out there.

Cool, can’t wait for them to churn out more crap.