Oh - yeah - I forgot to mention. I don't have a photographic memory, I did "some" work but not a lot, I didn't go to a privileged school, and I still went to one of the best universities in the world! :-)
I can't understand why somebody who has obviously had lots of advantages, and benefited from higher education should be so against the idea of having exams that identify genuine ability! And although having a photographic memory is an obvious advantage - under the old exam system it was necessary to be able to do something with that information! Not so true with the current system - where "Multiple Guess" abounds!
I do not believe that having a more rigorous exam system is regressive! The new system may not be perfect, but it is better than the current system - and that has to be a good thing!
As for the University funding issue - there were specific reasons given by the Govt when funding reduced. One of those was to eradicate "poor" courses yet Universities seem determined to retain those .... It doesn't make sense!
Lucy, beg to differ. As a schoolboy I had a virtually photographic memory, therefore walked every exam placed before me without having put any effort into it. Pupils who are well taught and tutored, therefore at 'the best' schools of the more exclusive kind come out similarly. It was them and my ilk who 'walked it' into one of the best universities in the world in the 1960s. Creative and genuinely intelligent students, thus those who were really academically best suited and in need of higher education, in state education who worked very hard got second best. Was that fair? I benefited from it but know it is not right. From that point of view, what is proposed is retrograde than than progressive, which is what it should be. However, where you hit the nail on the head is saying that an outside opinion is essential. Gove has rejected that, indeed has supposedly even rejected the advice of some of his civil servants, and (as he has said) lead from the front. Perhaps, just perhaps, somebody or preferably several people from within education might have been consulted.
The other side of this is university funding has been considerably reduced and whilst research goes out looking for funding from non-governmental sources, teaching cannot. Because of reduced teaching budgets, RAE assessments and so on, teaching is in fact being reduced. Universities are being pressured to take in more students at a time when either recruitment of new lecturers and on the other hand voluntary severances and redundancies are biting in (my wife took VS) there is a real prospect of mergers between universities. Less of them will eventually mean less places for study and somehow whilst there is no grand design per se, all of the motions are being made. When Gove first said the exams must be changed academics said that this is what they suspected, something is afoot and those who probably most deserve to study will probably be the main losers in the game. As ever. I may miss the facilities, but I do not miss the academic world itself because of what is being done to it by muttonheads.
Not sure why having a set of exams that "proves" a level of ability is elitist! Maybe I have misunderstood something - either in terms of what is planned, or in what Brian has said! But I think that any alteration to the system which results in a qualification that means something - and where only the most academically proficient are able to get the top grade - is a step in the right direction! Otherwise it becomes worthless! (Like the current GCSE) Sometimes it is useful, even essential, to get an outside opinion in order to move things forward.
My daughter is a teacher and I think the whole SATs subject is an annoyance to teachers and just gets in the way of teaching. I feel sorry for teachers who suffer more than most other professions with government interference!
Nobody, including official sources, remember or know what SATs stands for. Is the S statutory or standard, etc? The Key stages of 7, 11 and 14 are weird choices to begin with because they bear almost no relationship to what child development specialists advised. They also do not take teacher experience and ability into account. OK, they've been there for a few years, the GCSE papers were getting gradually easier (despite 'dumbing down' denials) and the success rates going up, so all looked hunky dory. Along came Michael Gove with no background in education but was a journalist (Murdoch even) prior to parliament and demanded it all be changed (again) but back to something like there was before that was proved to be flawed. Government most surely is full of imbecilic narcissistic muttonheads, but they seem to be looking for a more elitist education system again to ensure their species is conserved.
The SATs exams in UK are definitely given more importance than they merit, and they seem to encourage teachers to tailor their teaching to passing exams, rather than gaining broad-based knowledge. I still find it strange that for YEARS every summer when GCSE results were published the news was all about how much better everybody was doing and how good the results were, and that there was no "dumbing-down". Then suddenly in 2012 we need a complete over haul of the GCSE system to raise standards!! Only one of the reasons why our children are not in the UK education system! :-)
Used to be similar in the UK....they dropped the 11 plus exam....and it just became all about O and A levels...now its an exam every few months apparently and all about results...not learning...
how true....
:-) Great!
Hear hear!
Funny
Love it!! and the title.....