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Scottish education

For centuries now Scotland has been generally regarded as having a better school system than England.

Scotland could scrap exams and instead give 16-year-olds school graduation certificates
National 5s could be scrapped and replaced with a certificate or diploma as reliance on written exams leaves UK ‘vulnerable to disruption”

All good things come to an end, eh?

13 thoughts on “Scottish education”

  1. “…reliance on written exams leaves UK ‘vulnerable to disruption'”

    Has anybody got any idea what this means?

    Isn’t this just more lefty prizes for all crap? A diploma that everyone gets is going to be pretty worthless. Then again, back when I left school I had my handful of O levels on my CV but no one ever asked me for any proof.

  2. The value of a School Leaving Certificate to employers? OK he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the lad’s turned up every day and behaved himself – is a dependable sort.

  3. “…but the lad’s turned up every day and behaved himself…”

    You mean actual attendance and good behaviour will be required? That’s a bit elitist, isn’t it?

  4. The irony is that the Left’s insistence that exams be either abolished or converted into prizes for all just means that all the non-exam means of deciding who gets the plum jobs will come even more to the fore than before. If all the applicants have A grades up the wazoo, or first class degrees, then the best way to choose one is to pick one who you know a bit about, which means ‘That one is my old mate Charlie’s lad, we’ll have him’. Or unpaid internships as candidate checking process will mean only those who can afford to work for nothing for 6 months will get the jobs. Or those who go to private schools that do rigorous exams will get preference. All of which means the bright but poor/without social connections candidates will be ignored.

    Why to the Left never understand second order effects?

  5. Maybe parents will send their kids to schools offering the International BAC. Choose a qualification that the government and teaching unions cannot screw with.

  6. It’s striking that it’s taken an SNP government to destroy the superiority of Scottish education. Hang the fuckers.

  7. You mean actual attendance and good behaviour will be required? That’s a bit elitist, isn’t it?

    And racist. See some of the more depressing items on David Thompson’s blog for details….

  8. Jim

    The Left probably do understand first and second order effects.

    But they don’t care. Power first, second and third.

  9. “You don’t ‘graduate’ from school.”

    You don’t graduate “from” a university, if it comes to that. Graduation is entry into full membership.

    “It’s striking that it’s taken an SNP government to destroy the superiority of Scottish education.“

    It hasn’t really. They’re just hammering the last nail into the coffin. Before WWI, Scotland had something approaching 100% literacy. It’s the only place in the world in which rates actually fell over the course of the 20th Century.

  10. For important activities examinations will still take place but they’ll be closer to the point of failure. Perhaps this is best (after all, if you want to join the SAS you have to pass their exam).

    For everything else this does ostensibly make teachers rather powerful (does the SNP have teacher union backing?). They’re going to become some delightful mix of nasty and corruptible. On the plus side they’ll also be more subject to threats and the carrying out thereof.

    “If Errol gets a nice diploma you’ll get a thousand pounds. If he doesn’t, I shall chop your tarty fucking legs off.”

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