Not really the answer
What a surprise to find A level pass rates have gone up for the 26th year in a row this time to more than 97 per cent for the first time while 25.9 per cent of our successful students ended up getting an A grade. On the present rate of progress I reckon that by 2012 we should find 123 per cent will be passing A level while 114 per cent of the passes will be at A grade.
As usual anyone who happens to mention that the exams appear to be getting easier year by year, are less challenging, far less demanding and, to put it bluntly, dumbed down to the point where their value is questionable will be rounded upon and attacked by the usual squawks and screeches and pointed fingers of the fashionable classes then accused of being some sort of ist or other and showing some signs of various isms which is usual way our current leaders deal with dissent.
Critics will be accused of demeaning the efforts of thousands of pupils and hard working teachers yet our falling place in international educational tables and the numbers of schools looking for alternative exams tends to paint a rather different picture. People pointing out the glaring deficiencies in our exam system are not letting the children down, that job is being done rather well by meddling politicians and trendy educationalists.
I have no doubt that there are many fine teachers but they are lumbered with targets and league tables, political correctness and a curriculum which is designed for passing exams rather than encouraging teachers to teach and to provide an education.
As for the kids. Many work incredibly hard but when all but three per cent pass and more than one in four get an A grade what chance is there of the best being give a chance to shine or the rest being able to show a reward for hard work.
Einstein and Homer Simpson would both get an A in history if the question was what colour was Alexander the Great's white horse.
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Roger Clarke
Birmingham’s very own Grumpy Old Man on what gets right up his nose.
Did they do A-levels when you were at school? I though it was School Certificates when you left at 14...
We had A levels, O levels and something else . . . now what was it? . . . oh, yes, education. The present system is of little use to the good teachers or any of the kids taking the exams you might as well give everyone four A levels at birth and a degree at 18 and they decide whether its is a BSc or BA at 21.
I came across this piece while scrolling for news about my hometown, Brum. I suspect that Colin P was being somewhat sarcastic in his jibe about your leaving school at the age of 14. I would like to inform him that this old man did indeed leave Tinkers Farm Elementary School in Northfield (is it still there I wonder?)at the age of 14 and let loose to attend the School of Hard Knocks.
My very elementary education was confined to spelling, composing, and basic arithmetic (we did not call it math in those far-off days), and this solid grounding enabled me to work as a proof-reader at the old Birmingham Gazette and Evening Dispatch, and eventually at the Post, Mail, and Mercury. I need hardly remind you that in those days there were far fewer mistakes in the papers than in these times, when writers do their own proof-reading, sometimes with dubious results.
And with my "limited" education I was able to retire as district sales manager of a major building materials company in Florida.
Maybe educators of the present day, both over there and here in the U.S., where we are experiencing similar problems turning out students who can read, write, and spell, would do well to turn back the pages of history and go back to the basics.