No more 'failling' for lincolnshire students..

[blike]

http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=57711&command=displayContent&sourceNode=57238&contentPK=7138184

[Glider]

Aww geez....how stupid is that?

 

I can understand the use of 'creditworthy' I s'pose; where a student takes a novel approach to a problem that would have worked but for (e.g.) a minor arithmetical error (I still think it's a dumb word though), but N for 'nearly' instead of F for 'fail'?. Suppose they were miles out? You'd be lying to them.

[Dave]

one word: retarded.

[Sayonara]

On the radio right now, they are discussing giving preference to students from deprived areas with worse grades than students from good backgrounds and schools.

 

One "contributor" actually said there was no research that suggested that 3 B-grades from a deprived school was any worse than 3 A-grades from a well-funded school. I wonder why there is a standardised grading system then?

 

Surely if the selection system is not working, it's better to change your selection system instead of picking and choosing which results of the system to accept.

[NavajoEverclear]

Yes that is stupid, but the grading system in itself is stupid. Some people say we must grade to assess abilites, i don't know what to say i guess there should be some way to do this, but the grading system and other systems of 'education' are severly restrictive upholding enviroments optimum for true learning. Read books on it (i've read one, but i'm not an authority on it to say i can 'proove' this, but just think about it). Grades are just a dumb obligation, not designed to give any aid to progression.

[Glider]

Sayonara³ said in post #4 :

Surely if the selection system is not working, it's better to change your selection system instead of picking and choosing which results of the system to accept.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? But then it's easier to weasel around a flawed system than a robust system. This eases the way for this quota obsessed government to meet their target of 'eveybody in university' (whilst at the same time, by the way, cutting the funding of any University with a research rating of less than 4).

 

I agree with widening access in principle. I agree that socioeconomic status should not be a factor in University admissions. However, I think the government have missed several points:

 

Positive discrimination is still discrimination.

 

Whilst everybody has a right to higher education, that does not mean that everybody has the right to a degree (that must depend on individual merit).

 

Whilst it may be acceptable to lower University entry standards to allow wider access, it is in no way acceptible to lower University 'exit' standards (there are no brownie points in 50% of the population holding graduate degrees if the degrees are worth less than A levels).

 

The principle that Universities are not funded by the number of students enrolled, but by the number of students that pass, presents a clear conflict of interests

 

As with the NHS, higher education is fast becoming the victim of 'targets' and a 'box ticking' philosophy. Meeting these targets benefits only the government (who can then blather on about how "under this government, such and such targets were met), but causes significant problems for everybody else, and actually makes things a lot worse in the long term, e.g. patients not being put on waiting lists in the first place, just to keep the waiting times in the 'target range'. Students awarded worthless degrees in jamboree bags to meet the target of graduate numbers (which also devalues the degrees held by those who had to work for them). All this and more is for the benefit of the government, and NOT the people being governed.