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--- offtopic:british_education_system [2008/05/22 09:17] – Thande
+++ offtopic:british_education_system [2019/03/29 15:13] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 Favourite bugbear of [[MrP]], [[Thande]], and many other British members on the forum - most of whom went through it. Technically the term 'British Education System' is a misnomer, as [[Scotland]] has its own education system separate to that of [[England]] and [[Wales]]. And it's probably a lot better, as usual. McBastards.
 ==== So what's wrong with it? ====
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   * Exam boards buggering it up: Almost all British exam boards are known for making really horrendous mistakes, like providing impossible-to-answer maths questions, or printing the answers to the questions on the back of the paper by accident.
-  * Coursework: partly because of the absurdity of a system designed to teach independent working, but one in which //all// teachers provide continuous supervision //at all times//, and no wonder, because their own performance reviews depend on it. And partly because it is used as an excuse for continuous misandry in the media.
+  * Coursework: partly because of the absurdity of a system designed to teach independent working, but one in which //all// teachers provide in-depth supervision //at all times//, and no wonder, because their own performance reviews depend on it. And partly because it is used as an excuse for continuous misandry in the media.
   * University policy: New Labour came up with the bright idea that, for some insane reason, the country needs 50% of its school leavers in university. Of course, the current system is incapable of coping with such numbers, so the response was to 1) get hold of a load of new, pisspoor universities (often converted from excellent technical colleges that were doing their job properly); and 2) charge all the students ridiculous, American-level top-up tuition fees which disenfranchises half the people Labour wanted to send there in the first place, and saddles the rest with enormous debts for most of their working career. Of course, many students who almost find themselves forced into university by the system end up doing rather pointless degrees just because they're easy (hence the tabloid phrase 'Mickey Mouse degrees'), totally contradicting Labour's aim of creating a generation of highly qualified British people in order to use knowledge as a trading commodity in the global community. This also means that the fact of having a degree is worth a lot less than it was ten years ago, because there are many more people with degrees and most of them are not in anything important or relevant. This means that a lot of jobs that only required a degree-level qualification ten years ago now demand a PhD. Which means people have to spend longer in education and get saddled with even LARGER debts. Nice one, Tony...
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 Criticism of the BES is (usually) only directed at the crazed politicians who have buggered it up for the past forty years, and occasionally at the appropriately named NUT (National Union of Teachers) which appears to be controlled by a cabal of 1970s intellectuals. It is not intended to impugn the honour, dedication or skills of the large number of British teachers who are quietly getting on in the job in the face of a rising tide of problems.
+==== One-downmanship ====
+There is a perpetual game of one-downmanship on the forum between the Britons and people from other countries who claim that //their// education systems are terrible - usually the Americans, but sometimes Europeans and others. As we all know, the only education system that actually works is [[Singapore]]'s.