Nick Clegg and private education

Now I get it. State school sprogs are underprivileged because the state-run schools can't provide a quality service due to all the cuts imposed on them by MP's, of which Clegg is a minor example...is that right?

 

If you believe some of the content of this thread then why are you riding a Ducati and not on an MZ or a Chinese bike?

Because you pays your money and you makes your choice and why that should be different in education or healthcare which are a tad more important than which brand of premium motorcycle you ride I really don't know.:tongue:

 

I preferred my MZ, it's society that forces me to ride a Ducati...

 

I ride an Aprilia because its bloody cheaper to run and insure, have to pay for my daughters fees some how.

 

Clegg's careful language = his choice will be a private school but he will be "doing what his wife wishes". Being a politician I can fully understand the need; if your dad was Nick Clegg, would you want to go to the local state school and be bullied mercilessly? I think not!

For this reason, he shouldn't be running them down. In my opinion they should bring back the grammar schools and save the top "real" universities for the really academic students (15-20% not 50%!). I wanted the best for my two sons so made the hard choice to pay the price and yes it is after lots of tax being paid (if only it was tax deductable....). Bottom line is that the state schools should be selective and of improved real education standard. GCSE exams have been dumbed down to the point where an A is a pretty ordinary result now. It should be limited to the best 5-7% as after all it's supposed to show capability and not a statistic to use in a political debate.

Just in case I haven't upset enough people; bring on Boris your country needs you! :wink:

 

Hang on, why not Maggie?
I've checked:-
Dementia is a syndrome (a group of related symptoms) that is associated with an ongoing decline of the brain and its abilities.

That sounds like a cabinet minister to me so why not?

 

With you until the GCSE point. The results show what they are; an A is as valuable now as its ever been.

 

I thought everyone else's kids were private............well i am paying for them....

 

Is public school divisive? Well, probably.

Am I against it? No.

My elder brother went to public school, because my parents, living in London at the time, couldn't face him going to the local state school (which was probably rubbish).
Then the money ran out. My sister went to a direct grant school (so fee-paying) but got a free place.
I passed the exam to a local direct grant school without interview, but no free place so ended up at the local grammar school. Had I not, I'd have been contemporaries with Radiohead
Younger brother went to same school as me.

My privately educated brother got 2 O levels. I was fortunate enough to end up at Cambridge.

I am convinced that generally speaking, private education gives you a better one and all sorts of learning about self-confidence, leadership and other stuff which is massively useful in life.

The point is, just because private education is the better, should you make all education mediocre? The only reasonable response is to improve public education until it gets to the same level. That would be one of the best investments a country could make. I bet it pays back.

It's like saying Oxbridge is elitist. I'm all in favour of everyone getting the best they can get.

It is obviously bollocks for any privately educated politician to be against private education.

 

"It's only the children of the fucking wealthy who tend to be good-looking!" is, I believe the correct quote!

 

I'm no expert so maybe your right. My understanding is that an GCSE A is equivalent to the old O level grades B/C, GCSE B = O level C/D, etc. I am always suspicious though when A/A* passes were increasing every year when the anecdotal evidence from employers involved in recruitment, was that students seemed to be less capable of putting a reasonable application letter together, let alone being equiped to enter the workplace. I guess we all are guilty of looking at the past with rose tinted glasses

 

Get real!
Even in the 70s, we did "Nuffield" physics. I got an A at "O" Level. They made us answer questions in the back of the book which were real exam questions in the 50s or 60s. They were miles harder than anything we had to do. Pretty sure I wouldn't have got an A in those exams.

Now it's just a joke. A's at A Level were really hard to get in the 70s, really hard, which is why very few people got them. Now they are 2 a penny, like university degrees. When universities say that students lack basic writing and numerate skills, what is that supposed to say about current education? Oxbridge will be fine: the top couple of percent are always going to be bright and well-educated.

 

Think some rose tinted 'good 'ol days' shite going on here

Education is so different now, much more generalist and less specific, its hard in its own right to get high grades. I see what my son does at AS at the moment, and what he did at GCSE eg match and it appears far harder than anything I remember doing at O level. All this 'it was harder in my day' is just old peolpe justifying how hard they had it and how much better they have done than the ferrel youth of today.

Give credit where its due; an A is hard work and an A* even more so and no different than it has ever been: 90% perspiration 10% inspiration

 

There is a fourth; kids are taught to pass tests, not learn indepth knowledge.

 

Well you could be right. What am I, some sort of expert?
But then why does an A* even exist, unless it's to define ultra high achievers like the old "S" Level? You'd secretly suspect that it was a chance to subdivide the top category because there were too many people in it.
And then why does everyone complain about the current standard of education? I just don't recall that whinging in the 70s or beginning of the 80s.

Naturally, if some bright spark wants to tell us what % of people fall in which grades compared to 30 years ago, we could put the whole subject to bed (unless of course, everyone is now considerably more stupid than in the past, which seems unlikely).

I have to say that in my experience, academic success is not correlated that strongly with "success" in the professional world - which has got to be good news for many, and not such good news for some.

 

I thought that the whole emphasis on course work was that they weren't taught to pass exams. So which is it?