We believe we need to revolutionise the education system to include more practical and vocational learning. In today's job market it's skills that count. Tell us how you would improve the way young people learn and what they learn.
Posted by: The Tank | 26.03.2009 05:41pm
I think learning at the moment is a bit narrow minded and too focused on the solely academic side. I think children need to be armed with the broadest set of skills possible. This provides scope for more vocational learning in the school curriculum but I also think that an education should allow you to understand yourself and others more clearly and develop you as a person.
Their is definitely room for more experience in the work place in our education system because almost everyone who goes to school will end up there however I think Edge's manifesto for education overdoes this. I think that spending 10% of the school year in a work placement is excessive for every child in the country. I think 5% should be a maximum and that learning should be more broad.
The I.B. is increasingly common in this country and around the world and for me, it is a qualification which provides a broad spectrum of valuable skills and knowledge. It has a global perspective and it includes your basic curriculum of Maths, English, Science but it goes beyond that by encouraging people to consider who they are and where the fit in the world around them.
I think that if this were combined with the more vocational curriculum proposed by Edge, we'd be on to a winner. It's obvious from the millions of people who get bored by, or just dislike the education system we have now, that we need an alternative and I think it should be as diverse, enjoyable and flexible as possible.
Posted by: Edge | 30.03.2009 12:38pm
Masha, you make a really interesting point regarding English spelling and the barriers it can impose.
There's no denying that young people are always challenging linguistic norms. Youth dialects are often a vibrant swamp of ever-shifting buzzwords, cultural references and mutating semantics that can genuinely feel like another language to those not in the loop.
However, recent studies have suggested that young people's familiarity with texting and social networking can actually IMPROVE literacy.
So could the curriculum realistically adapt to such findings?
Could students ever find themselves reading their core materials in 'txt spk'(text speak), and would that be a good thing?
Edge would be really interested in knowing what people make of this, so please let us know.
How to improve education
Posted by: Masha Bell | 27.03.2009 06:46am
It is not our education system that needs changing but English spelling. Our main problem is that we have more teenage NEETs (Not in Education Employment or Training) than any other European country and this is due simply to us having the world’s worst alphabetic writing system. Because of it, 1 in 5 schoolchildren still struggle with reading by age 11 and nearly half of all pupils and adults never learn to write properly. So it’s not really surprising that thousands leave school each year totally uninterested in further learning.
English spelling, with its changing letter sounds (On, Only, Once, Other, wOman, wOmen, whO) and umpteen ways of spelling identical sounds (blue, shoe, flew, through, to, you, too), makes learning to read and write exceptionally difficult and turns many children off learning from the moment they enter school. Have a look at the website www.englishspellingproblems.co.uk to see just what they are up against.
Nothing will change much until we improve that. Everybody is impressed by the educational standards of Finland and Korea, but few people realise that they have the world’s two best spelling systems. Their orthographies enable all children, even quite slow ones, to read fluently in just a few months. We have many poor learners because we have too many poor readers. And English spelling is undoubtedly the main reason for that.
If we want better education, we need to begin to modernising English spelling.