O levels or GCSE - take your pick for trainee

Posted by Flying Scotsman on Fri, 22/06/2012 - 10:10 in Blogs 470 4 comments | report

Well , well, well , the government has finally admitted that GCSEs are suffering from grade inflation. In the relentless quest for equality for all , Labour made sure the dimmest and least capable of students could qualify for a university place and gain a 1st class honours degree. Many employers saw through this a long time ago but had no option but to recruit form what was availabel.

I suspect accountancy firms prefer a traditional style of exam format for their trainees over the open book , coursework , take it easy format foisted upon a generation of kids who have effectively been mugged by the system. When I look at a CV , I disregard GCSEs and take a degree with a pinch of salt if the candidate was educated in the past 10 years. Too often the grades don't match the manner in which they speak or answer questions.

I await Miliband's apology on education to follow that on immigration , although the irony is that many immigrants have good qualifications and skills in the professions , far better than so much of the dross our sytem has squeezed through the educational sausage machine

Comments

Phraseology associated with failure ...

JC | Fri, 22/06/2012 - 10:18 | Permalink

Some of the language used to avoid reality is amazingly inventive

On of the favorites is 'deferred opportunity' = failure

Euphamisitically speaking

Flying Scotsman | Fri, 22/06/2012 - 13:21 | Permalink

I am 5'6 and describe myself as "vertically challenged" . Short ! Tut tut tut , please do mind your langauge. My wife came back from university recently and said they were no longer allowed to refer to "brainstorming" for fear of offending people suffering from epilepsy, but must refer to "blue sky thinking" . I Manchester we do not know what a blue sky is !

Aside from the rejection of stupid PC phrases dreampt up by left wing sandal wearing bearded Guardian readers with leather patches on their jacket elbows , employed in the public sector , there is a serious issue here. Is it not better to let people who are below average in something accept their limitations and get on with life rather than have the rest of us descend to their level of simplicity which causes resentment of such people. Know your place and know your abilities. Can't do it - tough luck , that's life . It makes people so much happier and content with themselves and is better for their self esteem.

Personally ...

Old Greying Acc... | Fri, 22/06/2012 - 14:14 | Permalink

... my failing is not that I am too heavy for my height, but that I am too short for my weight!

On exams, I have never understood why we have A, B C etc - why not just give the mark obtained, transparent and allows for easy comparisson.

I struggle with a pure exam based qualification, as all that means is you can pass exams. I don't think that has been downgraded from my day, where if you doid enough past papers you would pass the exam, didn't mean, certainly at "O" level grade, that you understood the subject. In the real world, you look stuff up, you crib things off the internet, you ask other people etc etc. What is important is the ability to get to the right answer, how you get there is largely irrelevant.

What is relevant is the lack of attention to spelling, grammar and proper word usage - failing to teach these thing from an early age is like giving some one an Ikea bookcase to assemble but no screwdriver or allen key!

Three R's

Flying Scotsman | Fri, 22/06/2012 - 13:56 | Permalink

It gets worse with each candidate that passes through my door. Immensely frustrating. I suspect it falls into the catgeory of "policemen getting younger" gripe that is the mainstay of old (sorry, senior) people

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