A Level Standards

Another Times report this week, bewailing the lowering of A Level standards, meaning that students are now much less well prepared for university. Making courses "modular" has badly affected students' overall understanding of the subject, and resits have developed students who always seek a second chance.

Elizabeth Truss, the deputy director of Reform (the organization that produced the report) is quoted as saying:
"Today's students are being badly let down by the A-level system. They are not developing what they really need: a spirit of independent inquiry and confidence that will set them up for university and later life."

This is amply borne out by the typical quote of current 6th form students - "I don't need to know that - it's not in the syllabus".
When I recently asked Alice (currently doing Biology A-level) a biology question, the response was "don't know". When asked why she didn't know, as this would certainly be in the syllabus and she was very nearly at the end of the course, the response was that she'd done it last year and already passed that module!

Call me old-fashioned if you like, but I like to think that if you had learnt something and passed the module, then, if questioned later, you would know it. Education isn't what it was.