Last week saw the release of the GCSE results with many scenes of young people jubilantly celebrating. Just a shade over 69% of them got a grade A – C. A hearty well-done to you all, I don’t think.
Some might say: "Mike, why are you so down on all these immensely talented, intelligent young people? Aren’t you just being a crusty old curmudgeon? Lighten up and recognise the genius of Britain’s youth."
To which I reply: “The GCSE is pretty much a defunct and educationally bankrupt measure of academic achievement. It is my considered opinion that the courses involved, the way they are marked and course content is not fit for purpose. The young people of this nation have been betrayed by years of educational inflation that has left them holding, in my opinion, a worthless piece of paper.”
There will be plenty of people out there who don’t want to hear this. The young people who’ve just received their exam results and their parents. Politicians, who always seem eager to climb onto the back of news stories about ever climbing educational achievements. Teachers, who won’t want to hear criticism of their profession and the damage it inflicts on the tender young minds consigned to its care. The exam authorities, who ferociously defend any accusation that today’s examinations are not as tough as they once were. My opponents are legion but their vast numbers do not change the fact that the GCSE is pretty much worthless.
Of course, gentle reader, you’re entitled to know how I arrived at this conclusion. Here’s why I think GCSEs are a pile of mouldering whale turd that lies at the bottom of the ocean.
1. Anecdotal evidence that I’ve gleaned from my first two years at university. Listening to my peers recount what they learnt at school and my realisation that they’d learnt very little. Holders of highly marked GCSEs in ICT knowing nothing about computers, the Internet or even basic technology. The ICT course appears to be based on how to use various software packages without any solid grounding in even the most basic concepts.
2.Comments from educational professionals. My favourite being: “Over the last ten years I’ve seen a steady, year on year, decay in the quality of students attending university.” If those young people reaching university are meant to be the best what state are the cast offs in? That scares me.
3.My own research, directed towards my dissertation subject, has been most revealing. I downloaded a recent GCSE maths paper and thought it a joke. It begins with a page of formulas so the little kiddies don't have to remember them! Why the Hell not? We were required to do exactly that for our GCE "O" level exams. A question concerning basic arithmetic, not mathematics, even gave the hint that one litre equals one thousand millilitres. Can I assume that our educational system thinks that our children are unable to understand the metric system?
4.My experiences as the father of a teenage son. My wife and I attended my son's annual parents' evening and were left shocked by what we heard. My wife, being keen on foreign languages, questioned our son's French teacher over his apparent lack of progress, especially his ignorance of verb conjugations. We were informed that as the pupils at my son's school don't learn about verbs and grammar in English then it's impossible to teach them about it in French! Now I attended a pretty bog standard secondary modern school in North London. I clearly remember being drilled in verb conjugation. I also remember being drilled in grammar in English as well. Old Mrs Wells, my English teacher and adversary (she of the CND viewpoint), would be spinning in her grave if she'd heard this. If we were able to learn it why not the children of today? They have the same potential and access to resources we couldn't have dreamed of. Homework is another issue. My son rarely gets homework and when he does it's pathetic. Not exactly stretching or challenging. The whole ethos of the state educational systems appears to be summed up as following: "Do just enough to pass the exam."
For me it's obvious that these young people have been betrayed. They are, potentially, just as good as any other generation of students. Who knows? They might be much better. But they have not been stretched academically. They have not been forced to push themselves beyond their “safe” limits. Our educational system has failed to drive them far beyond their own meagre boundaries and has left them educationally stunted. They are capable of so much but have not been encouraged, pushed or even forced to learn. They have also been duped. Tricked into thinking that their academic achievements are of value when, I'm sorry to say, they are not.
I pity these young people and I pity this nation that looks to them to drive the economy forward into the 21st Century.
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