I’ve been reading up a bit on Education around the world and am struck by its diversity.
The K term in the title is one I hit pretty early and apparently refers to the twelve years after Kindergarten.
The math didn’t work out until I discovered that education in many countries starts at different times.
In England children attend Nursery classes in the year they turn 4.
However compulsory education doesn’t begin until the start of the term following the child’s fifth birthday. It’s rare that this is used however with the majority taking advantage of the extra year to be gained in school.
At Y6 (the year they turn 11) they complete Primary Education and move on to High Schools for five years. The last two years are dedicated to GCSE’s which are usually tailored to career preferences. The grades for these national exams decide which course can be taken in a local “sixth form” college.
Now that these two years, when young people are 17 and 18 are also compulsory, many are forced to resit failed GCSE’s sometimes unsuccessfully before being churned out into a very limited work place.
My Heather has just gained good grades which will see her starting a Level 3 qualification in September (good enough to get a job at 18). Many of her peers didn’t fare as well as her.
My older friends tell of times when many children would leave school at 14 and became apprenticed to local tradesmen or went straight into factories.
There was a short time after this when transfer at 16 went three ways:
– leaving school to start employment
– going to a technical college to learn a vocation based set of skills, closely tied to local companies (the preferred route of many)
– going to pursue academic qualifications with a view to going on to university
The “Tech” produced most of the tradesmen I know and use.
I’m very much a Horses for Courses type of thinker and really don’t see the point of enforcing education on unwilling minds. At 16 some kids just want to walk away from school for good, not be forced to resit hated subjects with the potential for more failure.
The proliferation of “universities” and “degrees” only reflect the snobbery connected to this level of qualification (I have an Honours degree btw) and the political gain made from pretending everyone is well qualified.
The dumbing down of age 16 qualifications is a fine example of this. In my day 40% of us gained pass grades, now it’s 70%. My girls say this is due to better education but I don’t see it. I’ve done their maths problems and see it as well below our education, somewhere between the old Ordinary Level and the now defunct (and at the time largely useless) CSE’s.
All I can do as a parent is guide my kids the best I can. Jos next and Lord only knows what she will do with herself.
