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Poor UK education standards

Oh dear . . . You are only a child yourself !!

At only thirty something years of age, you have clearly been taught, indoctrinated, and “bought into”, the present situation that fails so many.

You - with your contemporaries - have no experience of what life, society, and education, were like when the “system” did work.

The parents that are now sending their children/teenagers, to you classrooms, are themselves products of the “system” you complain about.

After thirty years of trying the same thing - and EXPECTING A DIFFERENT OUTCOME - you might think, imagine, someone might be open-minded enough to consider alternatives.

Do you - does anyone - have any evidence that the situation pre-1986, was NOT conducive to producing the vast majority of school leavers with a conscious self discipline, social awareness, personal responsibility and acceptable norms of “good behaviour”.


Beating never did me any harm! Sergeant bring me another boy - this one's split!
 
Education in these islands is an odd and quite complex mix of the very good and the very bad. So, children, let's start at the beginning.

In these islands, universities can only charge the same maximum for every subject, whether this is physics, maths, medicine, media studies or black studies (yes, it exists). This means, effectively, that the silly subjects subsidise the harder subjects. You can get a world-class education in medicine for what, in America, you would pay to study Sylvia Plath and her love of ovens. The sciences are quite heavily subsidised by the arts, strangely enough.

It's hard to say "what the economy needs" and you cannot say that people should study ABC because "it's good for the economy". "The economy" is nothing more than an aggregated abstraction of the needs people cannot meet for themselves. This changes with time and it's hard to say that "the economy needs XYZ" because it doesn't. Certain people think that it might do but it is not a person. It no more needs more physicists than I need a second home. It might be nice but it's unnecessary. Also, people will often study subjects for their own purposes, because they have a genuine interest that they wish to pursue. God help us if we cannot spend some years doing things worthwhile for their own sake.

Education is perhaps best pursued individually. We all might want our little darlings to go to Oxbridge, but the vast majority cannot. Yet the life of the mind is open to us all. Read a book every now and again!

Society doesn't need bankers.

Or does it?

Banking is not a STEM subject but the world did nor change in 2008 due to scientists.
 
I have no experience in banking, but higher education (as we now call it) has never really been meant to be all that useful. Traditionally, it has been pursued for its own sake and as an end in itself. It is certainly a mark of intelligence and diligence (at least at certain universities) but, with exceptions for things like law, medicine and engineering, it's never been all that practical at university level.

For what it's worth, I'm an Oxbridge type, albeit in languages rather than mathematics or computing. They were always the pale ones who never seemed to bother socialising!
 
I have no experience in banking, but higher education (as we now call it) has never really been meant to be all that useful. Traditionally, it has been pursued for its own sake and as an end in itself. It is certainly a mark of intelligence and diligence (at least at certain universities) but, with exceptions for things like law, medicine and engineering, it's never been all that practical at university level.

For what it's worth, I'm an Oxbridge type, albeit in languages rather than mathematics or computing. They were always the pale ones who never seemed to bother socialising!

I'd go back to your college then and see how banks are recruiting people then.

And then get them to explain stats and what business studies is to you
 
Your defensive tone; your inability to read between the lines (i.e. infer); your mild aggression when I argue that education is an end in itself and not necessarily related to economic or financial ends. The list goes on.

Good night!

I go back to where your college ks recruiting bankers. And where all banks are.
 
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@Banker Did you like oxbridge types with maths/computing backgrounds over those with no quals?

Honestly, it was a mix.

I've had guys with double PhDs, former senior Clarendon Lab guys, who were ridiculously bright, but their brains were wired the wrong way. Very good at constructing models, but very poor at "reading" them, or interpreting the results. Nor are they particularly good at taking and managing risk.

My approach to recruiting was:
  • give internal candidates with good systems knowledge, common sense and a good work ethic a shot first. Back office (admin) to front office (trading) allowed me to deal with the familiar and recruit a known commodity to a certain extent;
  • external candidates were usually recruited because we knew them through the market, or on a recommendation of another successfual and balanced person on the trading floor. Recruiting a proven resource reduces the risk where getting is wrong is costly in treasure and time;
  • I closed the bank's MBA intage program, as we spent as much time "deprogramminig" them as educating them. A lot of it was having to deal with ego. Interestingly, out main feeders were Said and Cass. On average, we'd retain about 20% of an intake;
  • lastly, the "milk round", from which candidates were taken into the bank and allocated on a relatively ad hoc basis into the various divisions. They'd get three months in each division, and could be "collared" if a division head was keen to hire them. Being trading, we tended to get the pick of the crop given the glamorous reputation.
On a generic point, relatively advanced maths is a prerequisite for trading, as is a quick mind. Some people possess an excellent maths base on paper, but do not have an intuitive feeling for environments with lots of numbers. I'll take the person with good intuitive feeling for maths every time.....ceteris paribus.

These days I'm out of the mainstream business, and run my own financing company. All headcount are people who used to work for me at banks, who have the aforementioned skills in abundance and, above all, get on with their job quietly and efficienty and are not a pain in the arrse to have around.

Those last two qualities are undervalued.
 
higher education (as we now call it) has never really been meant to be all that useful. Traditionally, it has been pursued for its own sake and as an end in itself.
Up to a point, possibly, but a convincing argument can be made that the main purpose of higher education is putting and keeping the lower orders firmly in their place, especially so in Britain. With the exception of the post-war decades, it has mostly been about reproducing social stratification.
 
Almost everyone who actually teaches the little bastards?

Apart from all the moral and legal arguments what that approach teaches them is "If you annoy me I am allowed to hurt you". What do you think is going to happen when Johnny Fucknuts gets told off and angry? Normalising violence will only lead to the kids returning it ten-fold on staff.

This was the situation 2 years ago - Secondary school staff suffer work attacks - over 42 attacks leaving injuries on teaching staff every working day. Something tells me that teaching teenagers the correct response to a bad situation is to batter someone might not improve that statistic :rolleyes:
Rubbish. When I was at school you simply didn’t dare. If the gym masters didn’t fill you in there was always borstal.
 
So the September results will come through in November - after the 6 weeks 'grace period' we have to properly course them/bin them. Will the government relax that rule? I'm not holding my breath.
I don’t doubt there will be some ‘Creative Estimation’ of grades going on in some quarters, so students may ‘stick’ rather than risk an exam without robust preparation.
Grades are going to be ambiguous, to say the least, so I would presume that some flexibility will be allowed in order to cut out the dead wood promptly, especially as the dropout rate in HE has been creeping up in the last few years (c. 7.5% at the last count).
 
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