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So, what about all this A Level palaver, then? I note that the pass rate has gone up once again to nearly 97%! That?s the kind of exam pass rate you would expect in the old Soviet Union, Zimbabwe or Saddam?s Iraq. So why carry on with the charade? Why not just hand everyone a triple mega super-duper A grade pass as they walk out of the school gates on leaving day? Even if the chavs who haven?t attended class in the past two years didn?t even turn up on the last day for their triple A grade pass, it would still be cheaper to simply post it on to them ? rather than go to all the trouble and expense of superfluous exams, don?tcha think?


Officer Dibble

I just feel sorry for the 3% who fail. What happened, did they forget to turn up for the exam?

Chavs don't take A Levels.............in fact most chavs have no GCSE's either. The less knowledge, intelligence and qualifications you have, the higher status you attain in chavvy society.

Any A level student you see dressed like a chav, is only dressed that way as a disguise so he won't get his mobile phone stolen by 'real' chavs, or to intimidate other A level students.

I am finally back on line after my computer gave up the ghost,(never ever buy Tiny computer, what a pile of grade A* shite) have just purchased a Compaq from PC world and it is f*****g fantastic!!
Anyway, glad to see dibbsie not giving up on his shit-stirring antics, still winding Mart up or has he finally given up on you baiting him....
As for the mass-debate about whether you can be as thick as pigshit and still get an A-level, I definitely think it has gotten piss-easy.
In the exams nowadays you get mutiple choice answers whereas in days on yonder you had to know the answer or you failed, it's as simple as that, I've had a look at A-level papers from thirty or forty years ago and I cant even understand them, never mind pass them!
My other half's father used to be a teacher, in German and French, and I asked him the same question about dumbed down exams and he agreed that the exams have gotten a lot easier to pass. He said that when he went to school in the eary sixties it was only about 5% to !0% of schoolchildren were expected to go on to universities.
I also think it's unfare on the real geniuses(clever c***s) who want to go-on to university and do a proper degree and get a decent job and be respected for being a general smart arse, like my sister in law who has achieved a degree in Biochemistry from Oxford.

Firstly, I must correct you. SOME exams are multiple choice, but most are not. Of the 2 IT, 3 or 4 chemistry, 3 or 4 physics and 2 general studies exams I did about 6 years ago, none of them were multiple choice, but I know some other subjects did have 1 or 2 multiple choice exams. If you think it's piss-easy then you should go and do one yourself and then come back and tell me it's piss easy if you 90+%.
And now, my main point. When I was doing my A-levels, one of the teachers explained exactly how the grades were worked out. All the papers are marked, then the examining board, after looking at everyones marks, decides on the grade boundaries. In short, they dictate the pass rates.

when I my A levels back in the late 80's early 90's most were split into 3 parts
one essay section, one short answer section and one multichoice
I found the multichoice the hardest part as a lot of the answers were very similar and you had to be totally correct to get the single mark, on the others you could always pick up marks in other ways
the exams in question were chemistry, biology and general studies, the one that didn't was maths

There's no doubt in my mind that both GCSEs and A-levels have been progressively dumbed-down over the past 10 - 15 years, and the value of a university degree has lessened.

The problem began in 1992 when the government (John Major's Tories as opposed to the Blairy Bunch) decided that more people should have the "opportunity" to go to university - and so the first step was to rebrand pretty much every institute of higher education in the land that didn't already have University status - from Polytechnics down to the most humble technical colleges - as the "University of (insert town or area of choice)".

And hey presto, the number of "universities" and consequently "university places" was magically multiplied - a classic case of "never mind the quality, feel the width".

The next step was to rebrand the courses offered by these former colleges as "university degrees" - and to invent a whole raft of new ones.

So no longer did graduates from these former colleges receive a humble diploma or some other "lesser" qualification - they were now emerging brandishing their shiny new "university degrees" not only in traditional subjects like maths and the sciences, economics and foreign languages but also in trendy new subjects like the ever-popular "Media Studies" (I read somewhere that there are 43 new media studies graduates each year for every 1 job in the media) "Equestrian Studies" (aka horse riding), "Surf And Beach Management" , "Citizenship Studies", "Turfgrass Science", "Wine Studies", "Air Conditioning" and (my own personal favourite, courtesy of Luton University) a BSc in "Decision-Making" (I kid you not).

This phenomenon was then compounded by the Labour Government some years ago deciding that by 2010, it wanted to have 50% of all school-leavers at University. (Aren't "targets" and "equal opportunity for all" truly wonderful things?!)

And the only way that could be done was to steadily but progressively let school exam standards slip, to the point where we now have the crazy situation in which 96.6% of all A-level candidates are passing the exams, with 25% achieving Grade A. And with such high pass rates, it becomes difficult to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Employers and the better universities have been saying this for years, but the politicians inevitably cock a deaf 'un and deny any "dumbing down" in order to justify their own policies and so as not to jeopardise their precious "targets". The examination boards (and teachers) take the same line in an effort to duck criticism themselves.

The politicians put all this "excellence" down to "sound policies". And of course the teachers and exam boards claim it's all thanks to "better teaching". But it's patently clear that standards have slipped, and continue to do so.

Just for example, I was talking last year to a lecturer at Salford University who I still have occasional contact with (I studied there in the early '80s) and he was telling me that whereas 15 or 20 years ago he and his colleagues could have safely assumed that new 1st year students would arrive already knowing certain basic tenets of their subject, these days they essentially waste the first term because they have to go back and teach stuff that was formerly taught in A-level or even O-Level / GCSE courses. He described the general quality of new students as "lamentable and getting worse by the year" (his words not mine). And this is a bloke at the sharp end who knows what he's talking about.

The problem is that when you shun excellence and (dare I say it) elitism in this way, you inevitably pander to the lowest common denominator and thereby encourage mediocrity - which is exactly what's happened.

You can't blame the 16 and 18 year-old kids who are sitting these exams - they can only sit the papers that are put in front of them and in a way I feel sorry for them because no doubt they do feel that they've worked really hard to get their qualifications, only to end up with certificates that are barely worth the paper they're written on when so many of their peers have got exactly the same.

When I sat my A-levels (1981), a girl in my year got 3 Grade A's. Three!! That was practically unheard of in those days, so much so that she even made the local newspaper.

These days it's not uncommon for pupils to end up with 5 or 6 "straight A's" (even taking so many A levels was unheard-of when I was at school, four was the maximum). Three A's is certainly no big deal today.

Another crazy aspect of it all is how the government, while professing to want to see more school-leavers enter university, is at the same time saddling students with an ever-growing mountain of debt - which of course has the opposite effect to what the politicians want to see happen because it actually puts a lot of people off going to university.

One result of this is that a lot of courses are under-subscribed, which in turn has led to universities lowering entry standards still further in an effort to encourage take-up and fill the places - and so the cycle of ever-greater mediocrity continues.

Having re-entered education at 30, I feel/see that it's the A levels that are about the same as they were 10 years ago. The degree's however, are easier on average.

I'd much prefer more students in University than ?29.50 a week schemes that were around in 1992 under the Tories. According to the Tories, working class folk are best kept uneducated (or just educated enough to work & pay taxes, but not clever enough to raise valid opinions).

I pay fully for my education by the way, and don't mind paying. Feel sorry for 18 year olds who may not have the savings though.

I did three A levels. Now at my old school they do 4 A levels, because they have become so much easier. There is really no point denying this obvious truth, but of course that won't stop NuLabor tossers insisting that black is white.

I am of the opinion that all exams are pap! I didn,t get where I am today by having gce woodwork or A level embroidery, why! you only have to look at my spelling and, punctuation to realise what a man of the world and fine scholar I have become.......A levels my arse! or is that what you all mean?