[ThisIsTheLife]

(Original post by roh)
But how will a private school make the same revenue as say a Big 4 accountancy firm or investment bank? They simply aren't in the same league of profitability but still need the same candidates, though I'm open to suggestions as to how they could find the money to offer those sorts of salaries to staff.

Well, for a start I'm not really convinced that schools would have to offer similar salaries to compete with the finance industry.

In my own case, I'm currently studying for a PhD in Engineering, and I'm currently facing the dilemma of - do I stay in academia where I enjoy the work, have relative freedom in my work, get all the luxuries of the jobs (relaxed hours, relaxed dress code, etc), but accept a relatively low salary with a shallow career progression, or do I go into the finance industry where people of my standing are well-sought after and can walk into £30k+ and expect to be close to or past £100k within a decade or so?

The way both industry's are NOW, it is a difficult decision, only because there's such a vast gulf between the two. BUT, if academia could offer me just HALF of what the finance industry are offering, I'd probably take that in a heartbeat. So, it's not that I want to maximise my income, but that I want to strike the best balance between income and how much I enjoy the job, etc.

Even if you doubled the wages of teachers, it would bring a lot of graduate down on their side of the fence. Obviously not as many as if schools could offer the SAME salary as the finance industry, but enough to fill the positions that so badly need to be filled right now.

Private schools are already a good example of that. Clearly teachers in these schools aren't being paid a banker's bonus, but they still attract far more talent than state schools, despite having only relatively modest increases in salaries (relative to finance, that is).

As you say the current private schools take those who turn down the dollar because they see teaching as a vocation but making all schools private isn't going to magically produce lots of top class maths and science graduates to fill those positions in what used to be state schools. Even the current crop of top end private schools (Westminster, Eton, Roedean, St Paul's etc.) don't offer those sorts of salaries, in spite of fees way beyond most peoples' financial limits, so I fail to see how others would.

The solution is producing more top class graduates in these disciplines and thus reducing their market value, which isn't in your plan.

But that has its own drawbacks too. Who wants to put all that time in effort into becoming a top class graduate if, at the end of it, you have a low market value? Most people who go to University these days (in STEM subjects, at least) are doing so because the government have convinced them (Lord knows how...) that they'll have better job prospects, higher salaries and better quality of life. Removing that incentive isn't going to increase the number of top class graduates, it's going to reduce it. If you bring their market value down so low that a person could get a similar market value in another industry with less requirements for years of training and education, then they're going to flood to that industry. Or, they'll move elsewhere and you'll only be adding to the brain drain that the UK is currently experiencing.

[The Socktor]

In short, tear the whole thing down and start from scratch.

Not really 3 things but oh well.

[DarkWhite]

I really can't choose, so going for a more governing point-of-view:

1. Remove David Willetts from office.

2. Remove Michael Gove from office.

3. Start an intense consultation process to find out what pupils, students, teachers, schools, colleges, institutions, and unions want. (This is in contrast to the ridiculous jumping-the-gun the coalition are doing in relation to education)

If I were to pick 3 specifics, it would be from:

• Replace tuition fees system with NUS Blueprint or a modified graduate tax.
• Create a postgraduate funding system.
• Reduce the budget cuts to research councils.
• Propose a HE Bill in parliament instead of behind closed doors.
• Drop the proposal to remove finance for mature students taking access courses.
• Invest more in vocational education and encourage apprenticeships.
• Install standardisation in exam boards.
• Implement more concise, subtle, continuous assessment for learning instead of assessment of learning.
• Introduce computer science instead of ICT, but keep the software-inspecifics of IT.
• Bring in a fairer solution to EMA where it's assured that money is spent on living and education-related materials.
• Have to grab a bite to eat now else I'd list more.

[Ocassus]

(Original post by blueconstellation)
1. Make primary school history more inspiring, and cut Henry VIII from it. He's hardly a good role model for feminism.

2. Teach and practise a few formal debates. Perhaps this is just me, but it really annoys me when I see TV debates which are manipulated by one side and the other side doesn't even realise.

3. Teach some simple economics, maybe? It would help those who don't study it for GCSE etc to understand what been happening with the recession an dat.

So let me get this straight, you want to cut out a significant period in our nations history because in that particular period the political climate was not similar to the climate we have now?

Wow....


Thats akin to Soviet/North Korean schemes that attempt to rewrite history to reflect the image and ideologies they want to project...

[Annoying-Mouse]

(Original post by ThisIsTheLife)
1) Privatise it. All of it (as I would with all services).

How will you ensure that every child has access to adequate education? Or don't you believe in right to education?

[xiyangliu]

(Original post by OSharp)
This sounds like an awful idea, removing their wages is hardly going to incentivise them is it.

Don't limit me to three things!

1) More Money - obviously

2) Kill Michael Gove or at the very least imprison him deep in a mountain where he can't do any more damage

3) Move away from the idea that if students are going to learn any language it has to be french or german.

Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and a million other languages are far more interesting and useful

4) ICT should involve some degree of actual computer science

5) scrap exam boards

6) Pay teachers more

7) Have a truly comprehensive system this means scrapping academies and free schools, whilst providing enough funding for teaching to enable gifted students to flourish, having gone to a brilliant state school I will fight doggedly to defend there ability to produce bright young adults.

8) Make exams harder so as the grade boundaries aren't ridiculously tight together, for some exams the difference between an A and a D is less than 15%

most importantly remember that education is good value for money and only by producing a well educated stream of bright young individuals can we ever hope to survive as a country with near zero manufacturing power.

They are absolute useless, they are useless. Some one I know who is going to become a primary school teacher and he is thick as hell !! He has a biology degree at some **** ass uni and he got an job offer from a primary school. His a level results were absolutely crap !


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

[Blutooth]

Reintroduce grammar schools and streaming in comps.

Would begin teaching geometry and combinations at key stage level to the gcse/ A-levelto make the curriculum more difficult/ interesting.

Would abolish key stage exams and replace them with a non-examined curriculum closer to gcse level stuff.

Emphasise the importance of scientific Olympiads and essay-writing competitions, by awarding cash prizes for winners and their schools.

[ThisIsTheLife]

(Original post by Annoying-Mouse)
How will you ensure that every child has access to adequate education? Or don't you believe in right to education?

I wouldn't need to... the market would take care of that itself. The same way that supermarkets ensure that people have access to adequate and affordable food products... if there is a market for value-for-money education, a company will pop up to exploit that niche by providing that service.

Taxing families to the hill in order to fund poor quality state education certainly isn't helping.

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my LT18i

[moorbre]

1. turn ICT into computer Science
2. Get rid of R.S/R.E as a compulsory subject
3. no more mixed ability classes where possible

[johnnyavfc]

Make sex education a more hands on experience.

Go back to allowing chips and turkey twizzlers and other junk food avalible at lunch time everyday

Employ more hot young female teachers, this way boys grades would be on par with the girls grades.

[Annoying-Mouse]

(Original post by ThisIsTheLife)
I wouldn't need to... the market would take care of that itself. The same way that supermarkets ensure that people have access to adequate and affordable food products... if there is a market for value-for-money education, a company will pop up to exploit that niche by providing that service.

Taxing families to the hill in order to fund poor quality state education certainly isn't helping.

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my LT18i

Yes but just like supermarkets, they don't guarantee that you'd be fed and there are many people who can't afford to be fed. So you're system will still have some children who can't afford schooling, correct? Just a small percentage like 1%-2%. But, still a significant amount that won't afford education.

[cid]

- Defiantly a reformed languages curriculum, with a greater selection of languages, in an ideal world much smaller classes and far more stimulation lessons (though that can really depend on the teacher) I recall my school day french classes, teacher says a word, writes it on the board translates it into English tells you to write it down and remember it ...yaaaaaaaaaawn. When i learnt Pashto we had scenarios, we did activities, we watched films in Pashto, not educational ones where everyone talks in the language really slowly either.

- English, why English language and English literature? Keep the same amount of study time but merge into one subject of English, on the language side perhaps look a little into the history of English, instead of just going, 'meh Shakespeare wrote in and old English, you'll get it' perhaps even have elements of the English department merged with the 'modern languages' department, might just be me being a bit geeky but i find it fascinating how other European languages have influenced our own.

- Offer more vocational lessons, whilst keeping core lessons, have vocational course on offer alongside academic courses for GCSE level whatever it will be now days, i think some places offer this, however when i was in school they didn't you had to wait until after you had done your GCSE's to pursue vocational education. Some may argue that a vocational qualification offers a limited future in only a handful of industries, but with education being far more accessible to adults than ever before it will still be possible to re enter education in another subject or vocation a a later point.

[Spaz Man]

Multiple exam boards for the same subject stopped.

Removing past papers from online (only have mock papers)

More choice in individual subject curriculums.

[NihilisticMystics]

- Standardise exam boards so schools can't pick them on the basis of which is cheapest/has the highest pass rate.

- Provide better incentives for bright students to become teachers, particularly primary school teachers. Something makes me very uncomfortable about the fact that some undergrad primary school degrees have entry requirements of Cs or Ds.
In terms of secondary education, a PGCE shouldn't be seen as a cop-out if the graduate job market doesn't look promising once you have your 2:2 from de Montford- in my opinion, students at top 20/30 unis who are expected to get 1sts or 2:1s should be targeted by schemes like Teach First and encouraged to consider the profession, perhaps by heavily subsidising PGCE course fees for such students?
In addition to seeing more capable teachers, it would also be nice to see teachers who are genuinely passionate about their subject and really dedicated to passing knowledge on to the next generation, rather than teaching as a means to an end.

- Comprehensive schools should be able to offer some education in classical languages and literature- perhaps this could be more beneficial than learning about text speak for GCSE English Language

- English teachers should assign regular grammar, spelling and punctuation tests. The amount of people I know who are at good universities but can't spell irks me.

- This one's my most ambitious Different teachers within a department will have different interests and would have studied different topics at university. While timetabling could be an issue, where possible students should be able to choose the specific topics they study from say 6/8 possible modules. For example, a GCSE History student could choose to sit one exam on The Enlightenment, a source-based paper on Nazi propaganda, and coursework on the suffragette movement, while their peers may choose different combinations of topics.
This would result in students being more likely to be engaged in their subject, more managable class sizes, and teachers who are actually teaching something they want to teach, rather than having learnt a syllabus for a topic they've never studied themselves.

- A greater emphasis on independent research for seminar-style lessons as early as GCSE. I recall largely being dictated to/told to paraphrase extracts from a textbook i.e. being 'spoon fed'.

- A tired point, but an MFL being taught from reception onwards.

[Aeschylus]

Completely change the way languages, sciences and mathematics are taught in this country. While rote-learning has its place, the application of this learning is the most interesting part. I never bothered with maths and sciences because I had such poor teachers who just treated it as textbook exercise. When I started teaching myself it was much more interesting. I'm lucky that because I was raised in a multilingual household I've never found learning languages too difficult.

[redwood_phoenix]

1. Focus less on teaching to the exam - with so much that could potentially be covered/learnt there's a lot of probably more interesting areas of many subjects that students just won't get exposed to. I'd much rather see more kids get interested and inspired (and also that the teachers be more enthusiastic) in what they're learning. I know this is very idealistic, and would be difficult to implement but...

2. The idea of choosing which subjects to drop/continue at 14 really bugs me. How many people really know at 14 what they want to do with their life? The fact that this can impact your A-Levels, then Degree and possibly other future choices really bugs me. Yes, it's good that we get a good depth of knowledge in the subjects we do continue, but knowing what I know now, I would have liked to have chosen other (well...probably more) subjects. I was always told to do what I'm interested in - so pursued some really interesting subjects, but if I want to stay doing something related to my subject future options are quite narrow.

3. I guess I'd like to look at the way things are taught - right from school - uni. A range of learning styles should be catered for, and it makes a LOT of difference when the teachers are engaged, interested and care about you learning too. I've had teachers that weren't particularly interested, and teachers that loved their subjects but weren't so bothered about actually teaching. My best teachers were the ones that were interested in the subject, interested in teaching/interacting with us and ones that found innovative ways to teach. Same stuff happens to an extent at degree level - you get the people that love the subject, and some that love the subject and are interested in teaching. Not sure how I'd go about this but...in my ideal world!

Also - I know not all teachers are amazing, but I really think they tend to be undervalued. And that whole 'those who can't do teach' - not true.

[Nick100]

(Original post by Miracle Day)
Are you retarded? Privatise education and create a completely unfair elitist system where those who can afford schooling get the best jobs and those who can't including their kids and grand kids would work in Mc Donalds and on farms for pennies.

That would be a massive step back for society.

This would not occur; education in a completely private system would be less expensive than you think because of market forces. Some schools would be better than others but this occurs in the state system as well, and the average school in a free market would be superior to the average school in a government system.

And "work on farms"? That suggestion is ludicrous.

[Annoying-Mouse]

(Original post by Nick100)
This would not occur; education in a completely private system would be less expensive than you think because of market forces. Some schools would be better than others but this occurs in the state system as well, and the average school in a free market would be superior to the average school in a government system.

And "work on farms"? That suggestion is ludicrous.

How exactly would the average be superior? Also, would there be any official curriculum?

[OU Student]

(Original post by redwood_phoenix)

2. The idea of choosing which subjects to drop/continue at 14 really bugs me. How many people really know at 14 what they want to do with their life? The fact that this can impact your A-Levels, then Degree and possibly other future choices really bugs me. Yes, it's good that we get a good depth of knowledge in the subjects we do continue, but knowing what I know now, I would have liked to have chosen other (well...probably more) subjects. I was always told to do what I'm interested in - so pursued some really interesting subjects, but if I want to stay doing something related to my subject future options are quite narrow.

Agreed. I don't know what I want to do now - let alone 9 years ago.

A few more from me:
- more choices on language options. I would like to introduce BSL and Braille as options too.
- money management lessons. Not just a few; but I would like to introduce things like mortgage, debt, savings and possibly pensions.
- more vocational GCSEs. Some of us aren't suited to academics. It's a waste of time to teach some people academic stuff when they're going to get rubbish grades.
- languages from an earlier age

[ThisIsTheLife]

(Original post by Annoying-Mouse)
Yes but just like supermarkets, they don't guarantee that you'd be fed and there are many people who can't afford to be fed. So you're system will still have some children who can't afford schooling, correct? Just a small percentage like 1%-2%. But, still a significant amount that won't afford education.

The state system doesn't ensure that everybody gets educated for a start. Many kids are still either going through school without getting qualifications or not going to school at all.

This tells me that the fact that these children aren't being educated isn't a pricing problem, it's a social problem, and if the welfare state has shown us anything, its that you can't solve social problems by flinging tax money at it. It's not that these people can't afford to get their kids to school, it's that they couldn't give a rats arse about sending them to school, as long as they're getting either dole money or child tax credits on the child's behalf in order to feed them and buy a few packs of fags and cans of lager, then that's all they're interested in. People like this will not be worse off with a privatised education sector.

In any case, if we remove the welfare state, we remove the safety net for the idle and incentivise them to be productive. I genuinely believe that without the welfare state, the vast majority of people could afford private education in a free market. The number that wouldn't have access would be probably less than the number which escape the state system today.

But in any case, sadly, there will always be children brought up under a certain set of social circumstances who can't be put through the education system for that reason. That's not the fault of the state or the fault of the markets in a privatised system.