Re: There *ARE* Skilled workers left....

[dennis]

>>As for pocket calculators..........what happened to pencil and paper and >>Tables?

They don't do maths at school AFAICS, the sort of stuff we did at infants school and junior school is not in the lower GCSE maths at all. If you saw the TV program about the kids going to a 1950s school you would understand, most of the GCSE kids struggled with the 11+ paper used to select 11 year olds, a few didn't so some must learn something different.

Whatever people say, a GCSE C grade is not the equivalent of an O level or even a CSE grade 1 as they were. A GCSE A grade might be but, you can't tell as they are too easy to get.

Its the same at A level, a grade A may be good, but you can't tell. The spread between the bottom of the A grade and the top is far to much.

More and more people want the actual mark and don't care what the grade is these days, the grades are meaningless.

Some run their own tests, including all government departments ( I know as I had to take them even though I have a degree).

[Arfa Daily]

The problem is that now we have this 'university culture' that has been promoted in no small part by this rotten government. Every kid now has this 'divine right to "go to uni", when it should actually be the next level of education for the very few intellectually supreme kids, as it was when I was at school. Compared to the kids now - and I've had three of my own pass right through the school system, so I do know - I am an intellectual giant, but when I was at grammar school, I was a 'B' grade average 'keep yer 'ead down and get through it' kid, who certainly wasn't good enough to go on to - or even *need* - a university education.

Another problem is that they are now teaching all manner of half-arsed subjects like PSE, that should be being taught at home by parents. Just think back. How on earth did we fit in two half mornings of PE, and a whole afternoon of games, and yet still do maths and english *every* day, including some double periods of both, along with history, geography, physics, chemistry, biology, german, french, divinity and still have time for a proper 20 minute assembly every morning plus two quarter hour playtimes, and a one and a quarter hour lunch break ?

I don't think that letting untrained parents - no matter how well intentioned - loose in the classroom as 'assistants' to teach such core skills as reading, is a good idea either. No one now knows the difference between "bought" and "brought" or "thing" and "think" or "lose" and "loose" and this is getting passed on. Some of the grammar I see now in newspapers and magazines, is appalling.

Sorry !! I could rant about this all day ...

Arfa

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

*Applause*

Well said, that RW.

Si - Whose teachers at school still wore gowns!

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

Best not forget about the people that can't spell probbabl... probabal... prolly !

:¬)

[dom]

Also on the bbc website:

used to lecture in electronics at a "new university", where a proportion of students that had completed a level maths had no grasp of algebra at all. I mean zero, zip! The vast majority had no intuitive grasp of calculus. Without that a deep understanding of many topics is not possible. Even with our best efforts, catching up the earlier years of neglect is near impossible.

I was a postgrad at Imperial - the *average* undergrad student admitted to my old dept now has 3 straight a's at a level. Imperial takes a large proportion of foreign students. Immediately on starting on their degree, those straight-a home students are required to take a remedial maths course in order to catch up with their foreign student peers.

[Bob Eager]

We gave up requiring A level maths (computer science degrees) a few years ago. Too much variation - those who had actually been taught A level maths, and those who had just been taught to pass it.

Now we require a high-ish overall points score, and interview everybody.

Oh, and we teach all the maths in-house.

[Mary Fisher]

fell to about 20% in the higher tier GCSE in 2000 and 2006".

20%!!!

Even I could have attained that in 1955.

...

I think that most would benefit from a remedial spoken and written English course too :-(

Mary

[George]

No offence like,when I said there are "no skilled workers in this country" I meant in th building game...I mean no one has a steam train or suspension bridge in their back garden do they? ;-)

All building game trades last as little as a basic course of 13 weeks or less nowadays and some blokes think they are masters at their trade and it clearly shows they're not when the job is undertaken.

[Dave Liquorice]

"go to uni" is all marketing bollocks anyway. All the old polytechnics, agricultral colleges etc now call 'em selves The University of .

[Andy Hall]

Needing to teach it as opposed to facilitating the students to learn for themselves says something as well.....

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Arfa Daily" saying something like:

Physical and Sexual Education? Blimey.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "RW" saying something like:

In the late 80s you were lucky to have had an apprenticeship after Thatcher had finished gutting the industries that traditionally employed them.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "George" saying something like:

You should be more precise in your trolling, then.

The problem of the Nine-Day Wonders has always been with us, going right back to the 70s and before. I distinctly recall, as an apprentice, working alongside a couple of blokes who'd done a three month course and were being paid full rates for the job.

[Bob Eager]

Not precisely sure what you're getting at here. To them, maths is a tool they need to master quickly; they are taught in the standard university way of lectures backed up by small group practice.

[dennis]

It wasn't like that when I went there, nor did they ask for straight As, in fact they asked for two Cs and then said don't worry too much if you don't get them, late 70's

[dennis]

I could and I had only been conceived. ;-)

[dom]

My old supervisor is now head of undergrad admissions for Elec Eng - so I got it from the horse's mouth.

I think your experience illustrates the grade inflation problem, coupled with Imperial's outstanding worldwide reputation.

The rector has just announced that Imperial will shift to using it's own entrance exam for exactly the reasons I described:

[Bob Eager]

I'm Director of Admissions at another SE university, for computer science. We ask for an A and two Bs, but also require an interview. If we are unsure, that can last up to an hour.

[dennis]

Hm.. I was there for physics. I didn't have an interview either.. I turned up for one and was sitting there with five others and the guy came into the room and said "right we are going to be offering you all a place so lets go and have a look around".

Someone told me its the way things were done.. if you applied and they wanted you they made a low offer, if they didn't want you they made a high offer. The opposite of what many people think. It had nothing to do with what grades I was expecting as I was sitting the S level exams as well as the A levels. (S level was the higher exam above A level before the government decided muddy the water for the youngsters here.)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Formal, yes, but we got loads of students at Hatfield Poly - as it was then, now the university of somewhere or other - to work for us in their vacs. And bloody good they were too. A few joined us later..and at least a couple of others went on to run their own electrical installation business..the quality of work was excellent.

If they were willing to work for not too much for a bit till they had learned the ropes, we were willing to employ them.