University A-level plan challenged

RomanNose

RomanNose

RomanNose

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Plans to let universities decide the content of A-level courses have been given a mixed reception by teachers and universities.

The education secretary raised concerns current exams were failing to properly prepare students in a letter to Ofqual.

Ofqual head Glenys Stacey said the move - for English exam boards, whose papers are also taken in Northern Ireland and Wales - was "the right thing".

But the ATL teachers' union attacked the plan as a "quick fix gimmick".

The Million+ group of universities accused education ministers of "ignoring advice" from higher education and said changes to A-levels were a "much more complex task than simply getting a few academics together".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17595345
I am still on the bench about this, won't this mean that some schools will just pick the easiest university exams and this will disadvantage the good students?
Some Universities have entry tests for certain subjects already, that can filter between top A* and bottom A*. The % of students getting A* at A level is only around 5-10 so it's not like everyone is getting them.
 
I agree with Gove. The amount of people I saw at university who had no idea how to write a decent essay or the formalities of one (including myself), who couldn't study independently, or had large gaps in knowledge was quite shocking.

Two of my A-levels where physics and economics. You can see that A-levels have become easier over the years by reviewing past papers for physics. Compare the exams from the past several years to the ones from the mid to late 90s. Massive difference in terms of how questions are presented, the range of material covered, the expectations of the quality of your answers, and how well you had to explain and know the material. Set expectations by universities in A level exams would go a long way to halt this process.

Economics, well that was just bloody easy. No maths involved, very open ended questions, not a huge volume of material. Not a very representative showcase for a university degree course in it, as I know personally. I spent two weeks catching up on maths which I hadn't done since GCSE.
 
something needs to be done to address the plummeting standards in our education system, and moving a levels back to universities is a good start.

A good move by our education secretary who certainly seems more concerned with doing what is right than pleasing the vested interests in the system.
 
Dolph said:
something needs to be done to address the plummeting standards in our education system, and moving a levels back to universities is a good start.

A good move by our education secretary who certainly seems more concerned with doing what is right than pleasing the vested interests in the system.
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Is there any reason to believe that the universities would do a better job of it? This is one area where we need less regulation. In some subjects there's barely enough time to cover the material in the course, never mind to learn it properly. In others we have to take time out to learn skills the teachers decide are important but aren't on the syllabus.

Seems a strange situation where i'm arguing for less regulation and Dolph is arguing for more, but regardless - it's the teachers that should control what they teach. That might mean being stricter in terms of employment, but that can't be a bad thing for the kids (especially when they have a say in who gets picked). They know the subject, they know the kids and they know what will be useful later on, be it in uni or work.
 
I think it is quite a good idea to be honest. Most university courses have to spend part of the first year reteaching A-level material to get people up to scratch anyway.
It would be better if everyone went to university actually at the level required to study
 
Teachers unions ultimately do better keeping teachers in jobs with better exam results(how can you have a basis for questioning teacher quality of exam results are going up?) by making exams easier and most importantly and the most fundamental degredation of our education system, teaching kids a heck of a lot less than we used to.

You used to be taught "maths", then it became targetted to only stuff on exams, then they removed stuff from exams slowly, then the questions became more targetted and specific so the teaching revolved around teaching kids to answer questions in a specific style while the same techniques used in a different way would baffle most kids.

I got screwed throughout my education I learnt differentiation at middle school on an "accelerated program" IE, 3 of us were bored and way ahead so they gave us the older middle school books to go through. Then I did smeg all in maths for 4 years, then I came up against differentiation at GCSE again in the mid 90's, and again at a-levels, then with a few years work before uni, I met differentiating AGAIN on a foundation degree.

It didn't slip backwards quite as badly as it would seem as the books at middle school were older ones, it was what kids were doing maybe 5-10 years before that, I just caught in this cycle of one great middle school that actually gave kids extra work, through meeting the same stuff again in a highschool that didn't give a crap that I'd done the work already. Then I met it in universities purely because so few people knew how to do even basic differentiation properly they started from scratch again to get everyone up to the same level.

In 10-15 years you went from teaching under 12's basic differentiation, to having to drag kids through it at uni as its inadequately taught at even A-level now. The stuff I was doing for differentiation/intergration at lvl 2 in uni was stuff I could have easily learned at GCSE's.

People wonder why so many school aged kids get into trouble..... its because they have nothing to do. If school standards hadn't slipped, kids were working far harder and learning far more, we'd both have, less "bad" kids around, a far more educated work force, be wasting FAR less time at uni simply catching everyone up to a basic level and degree's worth a damn.
 
Moses said:
The universities would essentially be setting the bar - wouldn't that be the best way of ensuring the ~end product~ is of the correct standard?! :confused:
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Why do you think it would be? I mean for starters the universities will be looking purely for academic skill, when A Levels aren't necessarily all about that. It might sound strange, but there are people that do A Levels that don't want to go to university. Where does that leave them? With a qualification which taught them very little that they can actually use in the real world?

No, a good teacher will know where to set the bar. A knowledge of the kids, how they learn and what they plan to do is invaluable when deciding what they get to learn.
 
PermaBanned said:
Is there any reason to believe that the universities would do a better job of it? This is one area where we need less regulation. In some subjects there's barely enough time to cover the material in the course, never mind to learn it properly. In others we have to take time out to learn skills the teachers decide are important but aren't on the syllabus.
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The only thing we have is regulation, we "regulate" education with exam results, and we cheat the system by making exams easier. Right now the government controls the level of exams and has a vested interest in easier exams giving them better results to spew out while campaigning. Universities don't campaign for office, their life gets easier and THEY get better results if the kids they get are smarter to start with. Government setting exams and what kids learn for political gain is the reason our system is crumbling.

Universities pushing for harder exams and smarter kids is the best thing that can happen.

Should we have more teaching time, definitely, I seem to remember being at school from 9 til 4, with an hour lunch and a break, we had 5 lessons a day, thats 25 hours a week, which is plenty.

Our kids are getting less intelligent because PARENTS don't teach their kids anything anymore. Parents should help if not teach their kids times tables, and how to read before they get to ruddy school, they should help their kids with maths, encourage them to learn more broadly in a subject area, if they are doing WW2 at school, watch documentaries with them, discuss their lessons, get extra books out from the library.

Kids should be learning a shedload outside of school and parents are the biggest failing in that regard these days.
 
Make the courses harder, people complain the education system isn't working/is crap due to falling grades. It then gets made easier so that they can say 'look how good our system is' when in real fact, it has gotten worse. Cycle repeats over and over again.
 
I don't know about your parents, but mine taught me to read before i went to school...

Exams are not getting easier. There is no reason to even believe that. Most people with that opinion have either heard it from somebody else or looked at one or two exam questions and thought 'hey, i could do that' without any understanding of what the marks are for. And probably people who did most of their exams open book.
 
It's a necessary fix, A-Levels have lost their value as they are just too simple for a qualification into university.

Shame as Universities are not the best at setting exam questions or an education syllabus as they have their own interests to balance out as well. Hopefully something sensible will be done.
 
Moses said:
What else is the A-level for? It's an academic qualification :confused:. Schools should, outside of that, be giving suitable ~advice, support and guidance~, of course.

A good teacher sets the bar in terms of the level they teach, in the sense that if you have a bunch of retards, they'll give them the foundation level GCSE to do/prepare them for that... or, if they're a good student, make sure the students ready for the exams to the best of their ability (so they know enough to get their B grade, or whatever their standard is). The teacher will maximise the usage of the potential of the student(s) regardless of the what the universities set as the standard. They currently work from x curriculum, this change would just mean they work from y curriculum - nothing really changes (in terms of how the education process'll work :confused:).
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Yeah, i know. I'm saying that they should work from z curriculum. The one they pick.
 
Arnie said:
A-Level students don't understand the current A-Level content well-enough. Most can pass exams, most do no work towards those exams and are they somehow proud that they get decent marks with no effort. The problem lies with the grading IMO.
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Thought you had 'nuked' yourself?
 
Arnie said:
A-Level students don't understand the current A-Level content well-enough. Most can pass exams, most do no work towards those exams and are they somehow proud that they get decent marks with no effort. The problem lies with the grading IMO.
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Simply not the case in my experience, nor in any of my teachers.

I think it needs to be clarified exactly what they mean by 'chosen by universities'. Does it mean chosen by professors? Does it mean chosen by exactly the same bureaucrats in a slightly different capacity? What? Because the most likely outcome here is that whatever is chosen is that nothing will change.

Personally i think the main change needed (without a complete education overhaul) is simply less regulation, and in places better teachers.
 
PermaBanned said:
Is there any reason to believe that the universities would do a better job of it? This is one area where we need less regulation. In some subjects there's barely enough time to cover the material in the course, never mind to learn it properly. In others we have to take time out to learn skills the teachers decide are important but aren't on the syllabus.

Seems a strange situation where i'm arguing for less regulation and Dolph is arguing for more, but regardless - it's the teachers that should control what they teach. That might mean being stricter in terms of employment, but that can't be a bad thing for the kids (especially when they have a say in who gets picked). They know the subject, they know the kids and they know what will be useful later on, be it in uni or work.
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It isn't that strange, more of a practical position than anything else. if you want to deregulate education, remove catchment areas, allow schools to determine their entrance policies and so on, I can get behind that. however, that is not the situation we have at the moment.

furthermore, I would strongly disagree with the idea that teachers, in the current environment (with regards to qualifications, performance management and consequences for failure) should have any great say in what they do, because there is both an insufficient educational requirement and an insuffient responsibility for consequences.

I'm all for empowering teachers, but it must mean the end of the current school setup and national bargaining system for it to work, and teachers are currently against taking responsibility for themselves in the required way.
 
PermaBanned said:
I don't know about your parents, but mine taught me to read before i went to school...

Exams are not getting easier. There is no reason to even believe that. Most people with that opinion have either heard it from somebody else or looked at one or two exam questions and thought 'hey, i could do that' without any understanding of what the marks are for. And probably people who did most of their exams open book.
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Exams are getting easier, a quick comparison of past papers demonstrates it quite well, as does the skyrocketing pass rate and average grade.

for a levels to be meaningful, they should return to the % banded marking that used to be used. (and is still used on most degree courses) rather than simple pass marks.
 
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