When failure actually counts as success
Peter Hoskin 8:58am
Michael Gove's latest prognosis for schools was delivered at a lunch in Westminster
yesterday, but it's important enough to repeat the morning after. The Independent has a full report here, but the key quotation is this:
’Education is like trying to run up a down escalator. There are some uncomfortable decisions that will have to be taken. There will be years when, because we are going to make exams tougher, the number of people passing will fall. There are headteachers who have been peddling the wrong sort of approach to teaching for too long, who are going to lose their jobs.’Just read that bit again: ‘the number of people passing will fall’. It's a deeply encouraging admission by Gove, and one that he ought to repeat frequently. One corollary of making the exams system more rigorous has to be an increase in failures. Insofar as it reflects an increase in standards, this ought to be welcomed.
There are, of course, those who won't welcome Mr Gove's words and prescriptions. The Independent article cites the head of one teaching union, saying that, ‘We are very concerned about the
negative image ministers are giving of the education service and how it seems that one criticism follows the other.’ But the harsh truth is that the education secretary has the facts on his
side. Professor Robert Coe, the head of Durham University's ongoing evaluation of exam standards, recently explained that:
And that's quite aside from how the UK has dropped down international league tables for education; or the terrible gap in performance between our state and private schools.’We have seen candidates with the same level of ability awarded A-levels about a tenth of a grade higher every year since 1988. This inflation seems to have continued up to the latest round of results, taken in 2011.’
Grade inflation is real and it is poisonous. It affects everyone from those with top grades, who find it harder to distinguish themselves, to those without, who might be pushed towards degree courses that they neither really want nor need. As with Incapacity Benefit, we should be particularly glad that the government appears to be making the politically brave choice here — and accepting less flattering outcomes as the cost of genuine success.
Previous
telemachus'
February 22nd, 2012 9:25am Report this commentAh but what are we to do with those who fail?
Where are the jobs?
Where are the apprenticeships?
You cannot as seems to be the Gove philosophy consign a generation to the scapheap
That way points to the Tottenham riots magnified one hundredfold
Rhoda Klapp
February 22nd, 2012 9:34am Report this commentTime we took our exams out of the political arena. Let's adopt an international standard that our establishment cannot mess with. They cannot be trusted.
Fergus Pickering
February 22nd, 2012 10:19am Report this commenttelemachus, you are hopeless. Passing people who can barely read or write will not help them to jobs. Worthless pieces of paper saying people have skills which they patently have not will not get anyone anywhere.
Austin Barry
February 22nd, 2012 10:58am Report this commentI’m angered by Gove’s plans to return the concept of failure to examinations.
I have three budgies who scrapped through their A-levels with unremarkable grades, but it now seems that their younger brethren are doomed to failure and will no doubt be taunted by cries of ‘bird brain’ as a consequence of Gove’s brutal Darwinism.
How will they bear to look in the mirror? Their formerly sprightly bell-ringing will now just seem like the death knoll of their future prospects. Some may even try to sever their crops on their cuttlefish.
Surely, the preservation of self-esteem is at least as important as academic success
Fergus Pickering
February 22nd, 2012 11:24am Report this commentAustin Barry
Oh Puleeze, budgies don't go to school.
Philip
February 22nd, 2012 11:30am Report this commentEach and every year has a cross section of children, and the average ability of each year is as near as makes no difference identical.
5% A*
7.5% A
10% B
12.5% C
15% D
20% E
30% F and below Fail
Fixed percentages every year.
Adjust the percentages to suit, but have a fixed percentage in each grade each year. The children of 2010 are no more or less intelligent than the children of 2020 or 1990.
It doesn't add up...
February 22nd, 2012 11:34am Report this commenttelemachus really should understand that the generation being consigned to the scrapheap are Labour's children. We see it every month in the unemployment statistics, where youth emerging from the education system fail to get jobs that go to immigrants instead. It is no kindness to dole out worthless qualifications: employers do not value them, which is why so many end up trying to pursue a "higher" qualification.
Equally important to employers is the ability to concentrate on a task at hand, and be polite and punctual. Lack of these basic aspects of discipline handicap too many of those who do not have higher academic achievements.
Barry
February 22nd, 2012 11:38am Report this commentFergus, my man. I think you are missing Tele's point; Gove here seems to want to close off university to those who aren't suited to it (by putting high grades out of their reach). Not a bad thing, but what's their alternative?
Barry
February 22nd, 2012 12:09pm Report this commentAustin Barry:
How do you think my goldfish feels?
Dan Grover
February 22nd, 2012 12:46pm Report this commentTelemachus, I'm confused as to why you think any of that's relevant to exams accurately depicting the quality of a candidate.
Fergus Pickering
February 22nd, 2012 1:13pm Report this commentAustin, as I am sure you know the budgie Fergus is some drunken Scottish c*nt, not me at all.
Mac
February 22nd, 2012 1:32pm Report this commentA Scot in charge of English education?
Perhaps that is where all the problems lie!
Cynic
February 22nd, 2012 3:42pm Report this commentMeanwhile there is a report showing that graduates do no better than schoolleavers. Presumably, they just have more debt. Education is like vaccination; sometimes it takes and sometimes it doesn't.
Fergus Pickering
February 23rd, 2012 2:37am Report this commentBarry, would you care to reread what you have just written? Gove wants to put high grades out of some people's reach. How? By stopping everybody from getting high grades. But if everybody obtains high grades then surely these grades can no longer be described as high. They are average grades, are they not? There are no high grades. Of course the rhetoric of the left says otherwise. It claims excellence for all. But if everybody is excellent then excellence is just another name for average. What we have is average for all. There is no excellence. I think that is what Robespierre was striving for and I think he said so somewhere.
Barry
February 23rd, 2012 11:21am Report this commentFergus
I can't tell if you agree with me or not. I think the point you've made is perfectly sensible and it doesn't contradict mine.
Telemachus cautions us not to forget the majority who do not reach the high grades, and challenges the government to provide them with options. I applaud that.
PS The same drunken Scottish person impersonating you is also impersonating me with that goldfish comment. I too am often drunk and always Scottish, so it could be harder to tell us apart...
Back to top