Another new study has shown that the UK is failing its children – are we surprised?

We stand proud at the bottom of 21 industrialised countries (I’ve just heard this on the news bulletin on Channel 5). Is this really "News"? Hasn’t this been coming for a while? The badly performing schools? The astounding A-level results that get better and better every year (astonishingly)? The changing curriculum, or talk thereof?

Shouldn’t we have expected this and maybe even prepared for it?

Countries mentioned in this Post: United Kingdom

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5 Responses to “Another new study has shown that the UK is failing its children – are we surprised?”

  1. Cyrrus1 - July 4th, 2009

    Preparing for it would have required politicians over the last 20 years to not be venal and incompetent.

    It is kind of surprising that we come bottom – I'd have thought the US, which I think has greater povery, would have come bottom.

    This is news because it's going to be difficult for politicians to ignore it – Blair pledged to completely eradicate child poverty within 20 years. That was almost 10 years ago – this is going to mess with his legacy.

    But they won't do anything about it – problems like this require long-term policies, and this government is only into short-term stuff that keeps the focus groups temporarily satisfied. Sadly neither of the likely next prime ministers are going to behave any differently.

  2. gorecki36 - July 4th, 2009

    I’m not at all surprised and you’re right about the A levels too. The questions that get asked on here, these kids must be so thick, they must give an A level just for spelling your name correctly.

  3. sophieandlili - July 4th, 2009

    What we need is a survey that shows that parents are failing the schools. You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

    If you have the school on one side, trying to force feed information to non responsible troglodytes and rapscallions whilst, on the other side, you have the unsupportive, apathetic, sue-all, wash-my-hands-of-it populous, then what chance does education have?

    Education is there for those that want to learn. There is a subculture of those people that can achieve their goals by avioding education in the sure and certain knowledge that the 'nanny state', that everyone critcizes, is there to act as a safety net.

    Information or statistics is not helpful to the masses, most of them cannot assimilate information and will use the negiticity as support for saying that education has failed my child … B*****x, you have failed your child!

  4. wealthygrandma - July 4th, 2009

    How did it get to this sad & sorry state. There's a sub-culture alright but why is it massively more pronounced in the US and the UK?

    It's easy to dismiss this as a fault of parenting or the children themselves but why has the UK used Sat1 (US model) as the model for UK education? This is clearly the most unsuccessful system of education thats ever being devised.

    I got expelled four times as a child. I committed all sorts of crimes. I have no qualifications whatsoever. As soon as I left school (& useless & pointless counseling from idiot social workers) I was fine. I simply went to public libaries and educated myself. I've never had a problem since (regarding education).

    School for me was a prison sentence for a crime that I didn't commit. I realised early on that the so called teachers didn't have a clue how to educate. To this day I don't feel that I could recommend UK schooling to any child or indeed subject them to this.

  5. writer_sheri - July 4th, 2009

    I think things have been going downhill for a long time. I took my GCSEs in 1989 and i did no revision whatsoever but came away with 9 out of 9. I am intelligent but not outstandingly so and i think my results are testament to the fact that GCSEs were far too easy then….and probably are now. I took A' Level french and again i did no revision….i got a C. Far too easy!!

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