Over the past few weeks, many young people settled themselves nervously at a desk, turned over papers when instructed to do so by an adjudicator and began a process that will more than likely determine the future course of their lives and careers. Yes, the examination season has come and gone again and, just as regularly, we must expect the media jibes and snipes, and the carping reports about ‘grade inflation’, falling standards and even the odd scandal or two, when the results are finally published. What credence can we place in these perennial rants? Are the examination boards actually under pressure to drop standards simply to make our education system appear more successful than it actually is?
Clearly, one hopes this is a fiction, but claims by an anonymous academic in the news last week that postgraduate degrees are being awarded to overseas students who speak almost no English, is a little unsettling. Foreign students studying for higher degrees bring big amounts of cash to the national table – some GBP1.5bn per annum in fees and a further GBP2.5bn for accommodation and living expenses – and their numbers have risen dramatically in recent years. Indeed, over half of all higher degree students attending university courses in this country are from outside the UK. The worry is that the reputation of UK university degrees in the wider world will suffer as a result and that qualifications gained here will inevitably become undervalued.
The impact of this revelation – which, incidentally, is fiercely refuted by the representative body for our higher education establishments, Universities UK - was compounded somewhat by another news item that suggested plagiarism was not only rife among the student elite, but seemingly taken lightly by examiners who “turn a blind eye” to the practice. It’s that league table mentality again; maybe the awarding of more ‘firsts’ and ‘upper seconds’ polishes the image of an establishment and makes it more attractive to those lucrative foreign students – or am I being a bit harsh?.
Meanwhile, focusing on the other end of our education system, schools secretary, Ed Balls and schools under-secretary, Andrew Adonis have accepted Sir Peter Williams’ recommendations set out in an important, independent review of maths in primary schools. The government now promises to train more than 1,000 specialist maths teachers a year over the next ten years and raise maths standards in primary schools by paying specialist maths teachers up to GBP8,000 in incentive payments and rewards to train towards gaining a masters degree in maths teaching. The government says it will invest GBP24m over the next three years to set up and begin implementing a training programme for 13,000 existing primary school teachers
In his review, Sir Peter calls for an urgent shift to reverse the "can't do attitude" to maths; he said that he wants every pupil to leave primary school "without a fear of maths", and recommends that, from an early age, learning about numbers and shapes should be “rooted in play”. Children should do more “mental maths” in the classroom and Sir Peter urges parents to help their children through games, puzzles and activities at home.
One can only hope.
Les Hunt
Editor