Off Topic Politics Thread

[San Tejón]

But why have we got lowering educational standards? Aren't we told that, every year, our young people are achieving higher and higher grades? Of course, this has nothing to do with grade inflation, less stringent examination processes, or the opportunity for the financial sector to milk youngsters of £30,000 worth of student debt.
The overseas talent (if we're talking EU migrants) is not here largely to raise our academic profile. It's to fix our plumbing, look after our kids and wash our cars. Hardworking they may be, and some are personally quite charming, but they're not doing anything that couldn't be done by our own, given the proper incentives.

I teach foreign students English; they are motivated to learn (because they need the language to progress). I also teach literacy skills to native students on vocational courses. The difference is startling; the native students have been allowed to ignore basic literacy and numeracy skills at school whilst being encouraged to believe they can progress academically beyond the bare minimum. The Polish students, in particular, have come from an old fashioned system which demanded accuracy and commitment. After a few years, starting largely from scratch, I'm usually confident that they are better able to hold a conversation, or write an essay in English, than their native counterparts. I even have to support native students in English A Level with their literacy skills ....ENGLISH A Level, of all subjects!

Too many years of ignoring basic principles and work discipline, whilst encouraging youngsters to believe that the only important thing is their "creativity" (without giving them the skills to express it coherently). And that's just the literacy! Don't get me started on numeracy

When I was working in the apprenticeship industry, with a training company, changes were made to the funding, creating "frameworks", which was effectively adding key skills (literacy, numeracy and IT being the key ones) to the various apprenticeships.
At the time I was outraged, because I felt that young lads (and lasses) who were not very academic, we're having a route into a manual industry, closed to them.
Training companies started to accept new apprentices based on their academic achievement, rather than their aptitude for manual work, simply because a certain pass mark in GCSE, could be used as "prior accreditation", which made it easier for the training company to achieve it's target, with regard to framework completions.
I know of young men, with fathers who ran successful plumbing businesses, who were denied an apprenticeship, by a training company, because their literacy and/or numeracy skills were not good enough (GCSE grades of C or better required in English and Maths). That they were in a settled working environment, many with better than decent plumbing skills, owing to having worked weekends and holidays with dad, never came into the equation, because training companies knew they wouldn't get full funding if the apprentice couldn't improve their literacy and/or numeracy skills to the required level.
I spent hours, with some youngsters, teaching them how to pass the key skills multiple choice tests, helping them to recognise that, of the four answers given for each question, at least two would be ridiculous and easy to identify. I wasn't a teacher, but did my best to help them learn basic maths, but if they still couldn't grasp it, they at least, with my help, could whittle a multiple choice question down to a 1:2 rather than a 1:4 guess.
I met 18 year olds that couldn't multiply or do long division, mainly because they hadn't learnt the "times tables" and because they had been allowed too much access to calculators.
Percentages were another area where knowledge was poor, with some apprentices who visited the office for key skill support, becoming quite upset upon being told that the 10% discount they had got on something costing £10 was only £1. They hadn't a clue.

Basic skills have been allowed to fall considerably over the years, and when the Keys Skills 2000 were introduced, we were told that EVERY university, including the very best, employed basic skills teachers to help the students, that were clearly clever enough to be there, but lacking in basics.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

When I was working in the apprenticeship industry, with a training company, changes were made to the funding, creating "frameworks", which was effectively adding key skills (literacy, numeracy and IT being the key ones) to the various apprenticeships.
At the time I was outraged, because I felt that young lads (and lasses) who were not very academic, we're having a route into a manual industry, closed to them.
Training companies started to accept new apprentices based on their academic achievement, rather than their aptitude for manual work, simply because a certain pass mark in GCSE, could be used as "prior accreditation", which made it easier for the training company to achieve it's target, with regard to framework completions.
I know of young men, with fathers who ran successful plumbing businesses, who were denied an apprenticeship, by a training company, because their literacy and/or numeracy skills were not good enough (GCSE grades of C or better required in English and Maths). That they were in a settled working environment, many with better than decent plumbing skills, owing to having worked weekends and holidays with dad, never came into the equation, because training companies knew they wouldn't get full funding if the apprentice couldn't improve their literacy and/or numeracy skills to the required level.
I spent hours, with some youngsters, teaching them how to pass the key skills multiple choice tests, helping them to recognise that, of the four answers given for each question, at least two would be ridiculous and easy to identify. I wasn't a teacher, but did my best to help them learn basic maths, but if they still couldn't grasp it, they at least, with my help, could whittle a multiple choice question down to a 1:2 rather than a 1:4 guess.
I met 18 year olds that couldn't multiply or do long division, mainly because they hadn't learnt the "times tables" and because they had been allowed too much access to calculators.
Percentages were another area where knowledge was poor, with some apprentices who visited the office for key skill support, becoming quite upset upon being told that the 10% discount they had got on something costing £10 was only £1. They hadn't a clue.

Basic skills have been allowed to fall considerably over the years, and when the Keys Skills 2000 were introduced, we were told that EVERY university, including the very best, employed basic skills teachers to help the students, that were clearly clever enough to be there, but lacking in basics.

My lad is a veterinary nurse, which he worked massively hard at to achieve as he is dyslexic. He was let down totally by our education system who just focused on his academic skills (or seeming lack of), without giving him any alternatives. His first forays into seeking employment were similarly unmotivating however he kept trying and working towards his goal - he is stubborn and determined and has made a good career for himself but there are so many kids in similar circumstances who just miss out because employers and trainers are so fixated with academic KPIs and don't see the asset that is actually there because the initial screening process just excludes them immediately. If employers were to consider providing the kind of basic skills support and training that you seem to have been doing, it would enable kids like my son to get a foot in the door and a chance to prove themselves, whilst acquiring the basic key skills that school was not able to provide them.

 

[- Doing The Lambert Walk]

Nigel Farage wishes the Jo Cox killing didn't happen, and if it didn't, he doesn't think there'd have been outrage over his poster.

There's not enough angry facepalms in the world.

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[San Tejón]

My lad is a veterinary nurse, which he worked massively hard at to achieve as he is dyslexic. He was let down totally by our education system who just focused on his academic skills (or seeming lack of), without giving him any alternatives. His first forays into seeking employment were similarly unmotivating however he kept trying and working towards his goal - he is stubborn and determined and has made a good career for himself but there are so many kids in similar circumstances who just miss out because employers and trainers are so fixated with academic KPIs and don't see the asset that is actually there because the initial screening process just excludes them immediately. If employers were to consider providing the kind of basic skills support and training that you seem to have been doing, it would enable kids like my son to get a foot in the door and a chance to prove themselves, whilst acquiring the basic key skills that school was not able to provide them.

Well done to your lad, because dyslexia has always been misunderstood, to the point of ignorance, in some cases. I'm no expert, but I am led to believe that dyslexics are, more often than not, more intelligent than those that are not dyslexic, which means there could be a lot of talented people being overlooked for decent jobs, simply because the general public doesn't "get it".
I don't know what schools have in place for dyslexia, but I've heard that just changing the colour of paper (I think yellow is good), with the correct colour text, can help dyslexics to pick out words more easily.
With numeracy skills, I don't think any child in my class, when I was 5 or 6, had a clue as to what the times tables meant, but learning them parrot fashion, and at such a young age, burns it into your memory. Then, as you get older, you start to understand the importance of the tables.
A young girl (17/18 years) I was helping with maths, in response to me asking "What's 9 X 9?", wrote 9 down 9 times on a sheet of paper, then proceeded to add them up, as in 9+9= 18, 18+9=27 and so on, until she arrived at 81.
Employers, and training companies, will, sadly, always take the easy option and pick a candidate based on academic grades, because it frees them up from the responsibility of having to give support in those areas.
Training companies are measured on completed frameworks, that include literacy and numeracy, therefore accepting candidates with higher GCSE grades, means fewer failures and bigger contracts, and funding, for the most successful.
It also means that many very capable, but less academic youngsters, are denied access to the work that used to be "their traditional domain" (skilled manual labour) and consigned to doing more menial work, that doesn't reward their potential.

 

[breconsaint]

When I was working in the apprenticeship industry, with a training company, changes were made to the funding, creating "frameworks", which was effectively adding key skills (literacy, numeracy and IT being the key ones) to the various apprenticeships.
At the time I was outraged, because I felt that young lads (and lasses) who were not very academic, we're having a route into a manual industry, closed to them.
Training companies started to accept new apprentices based on their academic achievement, rather than their aptitude for manual work, simply because a certain pass mark in GCSE, could be used as "prior accreditation", which made it easier for the training company to achieve it's target, with regard to framework completions.
I know of young men, with fathers who ran successful plumbing businesses, who were denied an apprenticeship, by a training company, because their literacy and/or numeracy skills were not good enough (GCSE grades of C or better required in English and Maths). That they were in a settled working environment, many with better than decent plumbing skills, owing to having worked weekends and holidays with dad, never came into the equation, because training companies knew they wouldn't get full funding if the apprentice couldn't improve their literacy and/or numeracy skills to the required level.
I spent hours, with some youngsters, teaching them how to pass the key skills multiple choice tests, helping them to recognise that, of the four answers given for each question, at least two would be ridiculous and easy to identify. I wasn't a teacher, but did my best to help them learn basic maths, but if they still couldn't grasp it, they at least, with my help, could whittle a multiple choice question down to a 1:2 rather than a 1:4 guess.
I met 18 year olds that couldn't multiply or do long division, mainly because they hadn't learnt the "times tables" and because they had been allowed too much access to calculators.
Percentages were another area where knowledge was poor, with some apprentices who visited the office for key skill support, becoming quite upset upon being told that the 10% discount they had got on something costing £10 was only £1. They hadn't a clue.

Basic skills have been allowed to fall considerably over the years, and when the Keys Skills 2000 were introduced, we were told that EVERY university, including the very best, employed basic skills teachers to help the students, that were clearly clever enough to be there, but lacking in basics.

Hit the nail on the head, Badger!


Your experiences sound very similar to mine. I spend time trying to teach would-be mechanics and brickies the fundamentals of punctuation, grammar and spelling. They didn't take a course in bricklaying to improve their English-some of them can barely write. Doesn't mean they can't be excellent skilled workers. Some people were never meant to be academics, just as I was never meant to be a professional footballer. The emphasis on academia above everything is harmful and the drive to increase the numbers going to higher education is a smokescreen. We don't need vast numbers of semi-literate graduates, owing huge sums of money, looking for jobs in an ever-decreasing field of work. We do need a literate work force which can understand and apply all the basics at an early age and be trained for specific skills. The same basics would equip them to be flexible and be able to learn quickly if job changes were necessary.


I was shocked to find that young people, apparently bright in other ways, didn't know what 4x3 was. (11x12 maybe I could understand, but 4x3?). Many of them responded well, when they could be arsed, and were surprised to find out that basic maths was not a closed door, but I did wonder what on earth the schools were doing with them from 11-16. (Obviously not tables!) Can't work out percentages if you can't multiply.


When I went to university, I was in a cohort of about 4% of the population. We were either arts students, aiming at teaching or white collar clerical jobs, or science students aiming at specific disciplines and related careers. Most of us had full or partial grants, and I would hazard that very few left university with debts (apart from a small overdraft). Proper careers which needed A Levels or even O Levels could be pursued by people who didn't make it /want to go to university. Apprenticeships supplied us with skilled workers who had a trade(often very well paid).The drive towards 50% university uptake has seemingly led to the situation where a post graduate qualification is the minimum for the same job. It also means that the education now has to be paid for by the students. All well and fine if the standard has been driven upwards, but their literacy skills (and their numeracy appreciation) seem lower than the old boys I worked with 30 years ago (some of whom had no formal qualifications).


The whole system is back to front. There is insufficient rigour at an early age, a lack of maintenance and discipline in these skills in secondary education, and a panic when it is realised that 99% success rate in GCSE/ A Level doesn't mean that schools are producing even the equivalent of O level standard leavers, let alone potential undergrads. This is why so many would-be university students are having basic skills tuition.

 

[ImpSaint]

Well done to your lad, because dyslexia has always been misunderstood, to the point of ignorance, in some cases. I'm no expert, but I am led to believe that dyslexics are, more often than not, more intelligent than those that are not dyslexic, which means there could be a lot of talented people being overlooked for decent jobs, simply because the general public doesn't "get it".
I don't know what schools have in place for dyslexia, but I've heard that just changing the colour of paper (I think yellow is good), with the correct colour text, can help dyslexics to pick out words more easily.
With numeracy skills, I don't think any child in my class, when I was 5 or 6, had a clue as to what the times tables meant, but learning them parrot fashion, and at such a young age, burns it into your memory. Then, as you get older, you start to understand the importance of the tables.
A young girl (17/18 years) I was helping with maths, in response to me asking "What's 9 X 9?", wrote 9 down 9 times on a sheet of paper, then proceeded to add them up, as in 9+9= 18, 18+9=27 and so on, until she arrived at 81.
Employers, and training companies, will, sadly, always take the easy option and pick a candidate based on academic grades, because it frees them up from the responsibility of having to give support in those areas.
Training companies are measured on completed frameworks, that include literacy and numeracy, therefore accepting candidates with higher GCSE grades, means fewer failures and bigger contracts, and funding, for the most successful.
It also means that many very capable, but less academic youngsters, are denied access to the work that used to be "their traditional domain" (skilled manual labour) and consigned to doing more menial work, that doesn't reward their potential.

This is way deeper than just dyslexics. It might sound really cool that politicians showboat policies about autism or learning disabilities but the reality is that the problem is much worse as time goes by.

While there is more funding and awareness into these sort of problems the workplace has become an absolute struggle for many of these people (I have Aspergers.)

Where in the old days (only 15-20 years ago) there were loads of quiet people that kept themselves to themselves and got on with their jobs. Some ideal jobs like in the archives or in the library etc are no longer there and even jobs that were OK are now a nightmare because in this modern world every job of any worth requires everybody to be great communicators written or spoken.

So while everybody is now more aware and there is some funding the problem is that the workplace has turned into something that a large amount of people with any sort of learning disability just cannot deal with.

 

[Archers Road]

The jobs market is currently tilted heavily in favour of employers, and the bad employers undercut the good. But it doesn't make good business sense to lock people out of the jobs market because they fail to meet arbitrary criterea that aren't relevent to the type of work they're interested in. My advice to any young person struggling in the jobs market is to decide what you're good at and keep knocking on doors til someone gives you a chance to do it. And when you get a job, join a Trade Union.

 

[breconsaint]

My lad is a veterinary nurse, which he worked massively hard at to achieve as he is dyslexic. He was let down totally by our education system who just focused on his academic skills (or seeming lack of), without giving him any alternatives. His first forays into seeking employment were similarly unmotivating however he kept trying and working towards his goal - he is stubborn and determined and has made a good career for himself but there are so many kids in similar circumstances who just miss out because employers and trainers are so fixated with academic KPIs and don't see the asset that is actually there because the initial screening process just excludes them immediately. If employers were to consider providing the kind of basic skills support and training that you seem to have been doing, it would enable kids like my son to get a foot in the door and a chance to prove themselves, whilst acquiring the basic key skills that school was not able to provide them.

I've worked with dyslexic students, though not a specialist. To the uninitiated it is difficult to see the difference between them and people with poor literacy skills. However, when you analyse what they have written, it is often apparent that they have organised their work, attempted to spell often quite ambitious vocabulary, used wrong words(spelt correctly) and confused word order. When asked about their intentions, they can often completely rectify the situation verbally(with coherent, appropriate English). If informed, the educational establishment should supply support staff to help them produce work (not do it). Allowances should also be made in exam conditions.

Little tricks, like isolating phrases, sentences, even individual words can help overcome difficulties. Dyscalculia in maths students can be addressed (depending on severity) by simply covering most of the page and revealing numbers as they become appropriate-especially useful in carrying digits in addition and multiplication.

As a rule the difference between dyslexic students and ill-educated/unmotivated ones is a matter of attitude. On the one hand are students who are determined to overcome setbacks; on the other, a group who find it too much bother. Of course, there are some dyslexic students who can't be bothered as well.

 

[tomw24]

Finally decided which way I'm voting on Thursday.

 

[Number 1 Jasper]

Finally decided which way I'm voting on Thursday.

So have I. The thing is though, no matter what way the vote goes, I won't be jumping through hoops if it goes the way I voted, because I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both. most problematic vote I have so far done, as I have had to wade through scaremongering and lies from Both sides.

 

[Puck]

So have I. The thing is though, no matter what way the vote goes, I won't be jumping through hoops if it goes the way I voted, because I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both. most problematic vote I have so far done, as I have had to wade through scaremongering and lies from Both sides.

Completely agree.

I read an article recently that suggested it really doesn't matter which way we vote because we're going to end up semi-detached from the EU anyway when the Eurozone inevitably moves towards becoming a single European state.

 

[tomw24]

So have I. The thing is though, no matter what way the vote goes, I won't be jumping through hoops if it goes the way I voted, because I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both. most problematic vote I have so far done, as I have had to wade through scaremongering and lies from Both sides.

I've decided to vote leave. The biggest issue for me is immigration. We are still letting far too many people into our country and it is still rising.

 

[saintkitch]

I see no prolem with letting a coin toss decide how you vote, no one really knows whats going to happen should we stay or leave so i am going to let fate decide.

 

[saintkitch]

The only thing that really concerns me is if we leave how much more will i have to pay to go on holiday.

 

[Number 1 Jasper]

The only thing that really concerns me is if we leave how much more will i have to pay to go on holiday.

LOL .

 

[Number 1 Jasper]

Have to be honest here and I am NOT getting into a long winded discussion .

Immigration for me is NOT the main issue . My main issue is Law . our highest courts in the land get over ruled by Brussels WTF ?

In no way do I ever want Turkey part of the EU ( Nothing against the Turkish people ) but where does Europe start and Finish Geographically . Cameron says we have a Veto , will we use it ? I don't think so .

Honest answer it came down to - If we were out side the EU at the moment , and this was a vote to join or stay out , I would have voted Stay Out .

I respect others opinions & I hope they will respect mine . Last comment I make on this .

 

[tomw24]

Have to be honest here and I am NOT getting into a long winded discussion .

Immigration for me is NOT the main issue . My main issue is Law . our highest courts in the land get over ruled by Brussels WTF ?

In no way do I ever want Turkey part of the EU ( Nothing against the Turkish people ) but where does Europe start and Finish Geographically . Cameron says we have a Veto , will we use it ? I don't think so .

Honest answer it came down to - If we were out side the EU at the moment , and this was a vote to join or stay out , I would have voted Stay Out .

I respect others opinions & I hope they will respect mine . Last comment I make on this .

That's another issue for me. I really don't like this either.

 

[fatletiss]

I wonder how many people really know enough to decide? It is easy to pick one or two things that are good or bad, but let's be honest, we are making a decision on a guess or a gut feel. We don't know what the economical affect will be on our country, affect on jobs, affect on immigration or even the cost of Kitch's holidays. People that have read up on this will no doubt have read someone else's article or figures and any manipulation of those figures.

It is a bit of a lottery and in the end a huge number of people will vote on either which side has got into them with their campaign, or by what outcome they think will benefit themselves most.

 

[Whiteley Saint]

The problem is even when people say things definitely won't happen, and I can see why, other will just not believe it. No idea which way this is going to go, I'm just hoping the outcome won't be detrimental to me. Selfish maybe but that's me being honest.

 

[fatletiss]

The problem is even when people say things definitely won't happen, and I can see why, other will just not believe it. No idea which way this is going to go, I'm just hoping the outcome won't be detrimental to me. Selfish maybe but that's me being honest.

One outcome may have an affect on my job