Science Community Representing Education (SCORE), which is a collaboration between several science organisations, published a report on the 27th April which analysed the type, extent and difficulty of mathematics within the 2010 A-level examination papers. The focus was on preparation for undergraduate degrees in the three sciences – biology, chemistry and physics.
Our findings are worrying. A significant proportion of the mathematical requirements – put in place by the examinations regulator, Ofqual, for each of the sciences – were simply not assessed and, if they were, it was often in a very limited way and at a lower level of difficulty than students will need to progress to degree level or into relevant employment.
Professor Graham Hutchings, Chair of SCORE
Links
The report can be found here (pdf)
In other news, the Pope was found to be Catholic and some revelations were made about the lavatorial habits of bears in forested areas.
I think this issue has be raised many times before. English standards are also something I hear people complain about.
What can be done about it?
Education at all levels is now managerial process – like a refrigerator’s thermodynamic working fluid – not product. Management obsesses on what is measurable instead of promoting what is important. Measurement is rigged to obtain what is required for managerial gain not what is objectively true.
An advocate makes virtue of failure. The worse the cure the better the treatment – and the more that is required. Management solves the paradox of want amidst plenty by destroying the plenty. Management is too big to fail! The rest of the planet will collapse around it.
In the US, Department of Education schooling is useless, kills inspiration and curiosity, is mind-numbingly tedious, makes no connections to anything, and is forgotten immediately after the test. Efforts and bugets must be multiplied as goals forever retreat.
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Enstupidation.shtml