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 cincydooley wrote:

If I had one wish for education in the United States, it would be that we could adopt a system that accepted that some kids aren't made for college and put more value in our trade schools instead of treating them as dumping grounds for burnouts.

Which would simultaneously place more value on a Bachelor's degree,

A good thing, and a win-win.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
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The politicians seemed to be bent on making sure there was no state or country-wide system to teach and assess students' abilities? How can this be reconciled with maintaining an edge, scientifically and culturally?

England has a nationwide curriculum that is nationally tested at intervals. Despite that, the country is slipping down the international education tables.

Admittedly it could be other countries improving. However, another possibility is that teachers teach to the test, getting the D and E children up to a C, while not boosting the C and B children to an A. That is because school’s performance is judged on how many children achieve C or better.

The other effect is that children are spoon fed how to pass the questions in the exams, but “off piste” material isn’t covered and they end up with a narrow focus and less research and problem solving ability to work on unfamiliar material.

Our government had the objective of getting 50% of our children into university education. That led to the creation of degrees like golf course and hair dressing salon management, which aren’t useless but only exist because a number of irrelevant modules are bundled together to make up the points to qualify for a full degree. For example, the hair salon one included a module on chemistry of shampoo.

Now it costs £9,000 a year for university people are questioning the value.

Of course the UK also has grammar schools and private schools, and that is where the more elite children -- in terms of ability or money, sometimes both -- go and get a better education. Between these schools and the better comprehensive (free state schools) graduates we struggle to find enough people to be doctors, engineers and so on.

We also have a problem with trade education. The government, having got rid of trade schools and apprenticeships over the past 30 years, is now trying to bring them back.

The Germans have a better system in which the more academic children go to university and the more practical children go to good quality trade schools.

The other thing about Germany is that they are much less focussed on the Anglo-Saxon model of economic competition, which has seeped into our education system.

The UK system is a clusterfeth, another point that has an effect is the constant denigration of teachers in public discourse and tolerance of antisocial behaviour.