British Student Answer (GCSE & AS-LEVELS)

[///James///]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3751644.stm

If you didnt know, there is to be a radical reform on the education system in Cymru/Wales and England/England!!

Whats your opinion on the topic, how would this effect you (if they were brought in next week [as it is 10 years away]) and would you be happier or even more misreable?

I cant comment. Irish-ness. But i feel that it should be brought over to ireland, cos our education is just crap. I particularly like the idea of more vocational courses & things like IT, and of course functional. Like WTF would use algebra (retoricle question!)

POST YOUR VIEWS/OPINIONS HERE

[TheWizard]

It sounds cool but I don't know.

[Whisper]

For the most part Canada's sucks to :( Every school except one that i've been to sucks! But Saint Josephs (sp?) in Edmonton Ab. kicks ass it's from grades 10-12, all self paced you go into a lecture room listen to a teach (you can come n go whenever you want) then you leave n go into other rooms scattered all over the school where you sit at a desk n work grades 10-12 all mixed together. The schools main hallway looks like a street theres lamp posts n everything. They have ton of diffrent kinds of live animals, they have a kick ass drama class, it rules!!!! Unfortunatly i'm not there anymore :cry: :cry:

[Comptine d'un autre été]

The problem with this, just as in the case where GNVQ's came in, is that employers don't know what grade in which subject is worth what anymore. It makes things confusing for employers to have to learn a whole new system in order to recruit people. They can also be led into thinking something is worth a higher merit than it actually is, which confuses the whole thing and makes it unfair on the people who have had to sit the old style exams aswwell.

[Tony]

Im from Scotland so our equivelant to GCSE are Standard Grades so to drop them and just do 4 years of Higher is a great Idea. Trying to get a job with 10 Standard grades is no match next to someone applying for the same job with 5 highers, not even close. You need highers in this day to get a job, not GCSE you cant do anything with them.

[Shaolin]

If you noticed, alot of post graduates (people with university degrees) are failing to get a job because so many people have them. There are so many people trying to get these professions (in the hope of a high pay job as soon as they leave) but the employers are being bogged down, thus most post graduates end up working in a supermarket years before they get a job in the profession they trained for years before, and by that time it's likely you would have lost interest.

It's not well documented in the news, the government don't want you to know that uni degrees are becoming ever more worthless.

THe education system really needs to be sorted.

[newshound18]

I don't know! I'm rather sceptical to say the least. It does kind of anger me, which is why I voted 'no' in the above poll. I'm currently studying 3 A levels and now the government is telling us it's time for a change. I have to agree that it is immensly worrying about the number of students gaining an A-C grade. It was about 55% of males and 59% of females in 2001. The numbers gaining an A grade keeps on climbing which means that the most prestigious universities, such as Cambridge and Oxford find it difficult to differentiate the A grades. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent! I think a vocational education is a good idea on the whole, but I don't see the need to change the entire A level system. It can not be denied that since the AS and A2 system more students are gaining higher grades because of the modular approach instead of one sitting of a three hour exam. I guess it depends how you look at it! Anyway to end then, VOCATIONALISM is a good idea, BUT you must still have TRADITIONAL subjects. They may be a tendency to gain skills for one particular job and then close the door to several other jobs.