just a heads up for information recently published about standards of education worldwide

http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com/the-report/getting-teachers-who-make-a-difference

which is food for thought on many levels - not least of which is "Where was my teacher educated?"

What are some of your other thoughts?

You may want to break up USA by race since there is a fairly large deviation amongst them.

If the Korean education system is so great than why are huge numbers abandoning the system to attend international schools throughout the world?

Many who have worked out there describe the system as massively broken, with any students hoping to get good grades needing to attend multiple cram classes at evenings and weekends...

Saw this yesterday. Tables mean nothing without how they were complied.

I'm British , but if the UK system is the 6th best in the world why are we short of Engineers, doctors, chemists, scientists , but have plenty of pretty much unemployable arts, media , drama, classic subjects, religion, etc etc etc graduates. Is it based on exam results purely, no matter what the subject or is it based on results in difficult useful subjects ?

The reality is that in most western countries the public education system is to a large extent controlled by the Teachers Unions. My only comment to that would be do the unions maximise the system to excellence in education or do they maximise it so that their members cannot be fired for incompetence, for holidays, for wages, for minimal contact time, for mimimal standards, and for choosing the politicaly correct subjects they endorse whether actually useful to students or not?

Let me rephrase that to something more may comprehend, if the hookers in Pattaya had a union would it be working to maximise the enjoyment of the players or be to benefit their members? Not rocket science.

Rancid, if the unions are making it so good for the teachers, why aren't you teaching?

Saw this yesterday. Tables mean nothing without how they were complied.

I'm British , but if the UK system is the 6th best in the world why are we short of Engineers, doctors, chemists, scientists , but have plenty of pretty much unemployable arts, media , drama, classic subjects, religion, etc etc etc graduates. Is it based on exam results purely, no matter what the subject or is it based on results in difficult useful subjects ?

I believe UK still has a brain-drain going on because salaries in UK are not competitive. It might not be the education system's fault......

I think its a bit more complicated than just about salaries or unions. There was a time when University education produced generalists and specialists for fairly well define career paths, and taught students to think eg. PPE at Cambridge Uni for English civil servants, or the ridiculously exclusive demands of medicine and law degrees. It seems now that not only is there an explosion in 'professions' requiring not just undergraduate degrees but Masters as well. So many 30 year olds I know must have an MBA - for what? The pay now and pass later phenomena seems to have dumbed down the standards on many degrees. As a former lecturer I was often surprised by Masters and PhD candidates who couldn't spell or write a simple essay. I guess the time has long gone when students went to Uni to explore ideas and say something original. I guess the competition between higher Ed institutions has also changed the approach. But for sure, even given the benefits of google, so many young people seem to have little general knowledge about the world they live in, and little interest as well. But I could just be a grumpy old man.

The reality is that in most western countries the public education system is to a large extent controlled by the Teachers Unions. My only comment to that would be do the unions maximise the system to excellence in education or do they maximise it so that their members cannot be fired for incompetence, for holidays, for wages, for minimal contact time, for mimimal standards, and for choosing the politicaly correct subjects they endorse whether actually useful to students or not?

Let me rephrase that to something more may comprehend, if the hookers in Pattaya had a union would it be working to maximise the enjoyment of the players or be to benefit their members? Not rocket science.

What complete and utter borrocks you churn out, Rancid.

I am a teacher in the UK: and have been since 1973, firstly in England and latterly in Scotland. During this time, I have been fortunate enough to work closely with schools in Austria (Salzburg), Germany (Lubeck, Frankfurt and Koln), Italy (Venice and Brescia), France (Troyes), Spain (Salamanca), Romania (Craiova) and Poland (Wielizcka). I also have friends who are school inspectors in some of these countries.

Nowhere have I seen the unions in charge of education systems. Take Scotland, for example. Here, the curriculum is dictated by the Scottish GOVERNMENT, ....(go and read up on the Curriculum for Excellence). Take a look at England, where it is the GOVERNMENT that is proposing changes to the education system. In France there is a national curriculum tightly controlled by the French GOVERNMENT. The Welsh Assembly (I got bored writing GOVERNMENT, but I'm sure you're getting the message by now ) has recently been laying out what they wish to see as their exam system.

Unions controlling education systems....IF ONLY! If that were so, you would have professionals running the system working in partnership with parents, instead of a bunch of ill-behaved here today, gone tomorrow politicians. One week in charge of food production, nest week in charge of our children's future.. Is that what you really want for YOUR children?

Edited November 28, 201213 yr by Rob8891