Letter from London
A-level tinkering
As the start of the new academic year approaches, school-leaving A-level results are under scrutiny again. This year almost a quarter of all A-level students were awarded A grade, the second biggest leap in 30 years. And again this is posing problems as universities wonder how to distinguish top achievers inter se.
For example in maths which is now the third most popular A-level subject, almost half the students who wrote the exam were awarded A grade, following a controversial examination reform which critics claim “tore the guts” out of the subject and made it much easier. In other subjects, including a variety of European languages, chemistry, physics and economics, almost one-third of students were awarded A’s.
Unsurprisingly the A-level results have triggered a fresh row over standards with critics arguing that top grades no longer differentiate the most talented from simply ‘good’ hardworking or ‘well-drilled’ students. Consequently many straight A students are being rejected by both Oxford and Cambridge, and universities are increasingly introducing their own entrance tests to distinguish between A grade applicants.
The government response to all this is to toughen the A-levels to restore the credibility of this time-tested exam, with the introduction of harder questions and a new A* grading by 2008. However Dr. John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, questions this strategy arguing that introducing a higher A* grade will degrade the A and B grades.
However David Eastwood, who took charge of England’s £6 billion university funding council last month (September), has backed calls to reform the school-leaving examination system. He believes that the A-level, and the lower level GCSE, should be overhauled so that teenagers sit fewer, but tougher school exams. Moreover pupils should be given more time to understand subjects rather than just learn how to pass exams. “The question is, what do we value in A-levels? The answer is that we want high quality academic — and vocational — qualifications that are stretching and exciting,” says Eastwood.
Some independent schools, worried about the fading reputation of the A-level qualification are offering the popular International Baccalaureate, or are pondering a new qualification known as the Cambridge Pre-U. The latter is a two-year qualification offering at least 12 subjects, including maths, life sciences and languages.
Yet at bottom, the most worrisome aspect of these discussions is their implicit denigration of the achievements of students who have worked hard to win places at university. While discussing reform of the system, we should not forget to take time out to congratulate the success of aspirational young students.
(Jacqueline Thomas is a London-based academic)
Japan
Divisive education Bill
Legal scholars are in the forefront of a campaign to block the Japanese government’s proposed Bill on education which they say breaches the constitution. As the coalition government gears up for the Bill, the 700-member Japan Educational Law Association (JELA) is seeking to join forces with teachers’ unions, parents’ organisations and provincial educational boards outraged by moves they say could lead to state control of education.
The academics argue that the Bill, which identifies as key educational objectives ideals such as “developing the attitude of love for our country” and “respecting the tradition and culture”, violates “academic freedom” and the “right to receive education” guaranteed by the country’s postwar constitution.
This is precisely what the current law, enacted in 1947, sought to prevent. A year after the peace constitution democratised Japan, guaranteeing individual freedom and equality for the first time, the law firmly established the purpose of education as the “development of individuals’ personality”, rather than inculcating loyalty to the state, as the imperial edict of pre-war Japan had attempted to do. The new Bill stands the 1947 legislation on its head.
The proposed law gives the education ministry the powers to intervene in private as well as state-run institutions, including universities, claim academics. “We are heading right back to the prewar-style education system,” warns Rokuro Hidaka, sociologist and former professor of Tokyo University.
The government maintains that the Bill is constitutional, downplaying its nationalistic elements and ignoring the academics’ criticism. Moreover, in the absence of in-depth coverage of this Bill by the local press, public awareness remains low. Education and legal experts in Japan and overseas have long warned that revising the 1947 law would pave the way to rewriting the postwar constitution that binds Japan to “forever renouncing war as a sovereign right” and “never maintaining” military “forces as well as other war potential”.
“Clearly, the government wants to have military forces,” says Prof. Hidaka. “This is why they want to have an educational tool that takes the place of the imperial edict.”
Teachers and parents although fearful of the sweeping educational overhaul that the new Bill could bring about are too fractured to be effective as an opposition force.
United States
Visa chaos hurting student inflow
The US must streamline its chaotic student visa system as a matter of urgency, as a first step towards reversing declining numbers of overseas students. Educators are imploring US leaders to make a commitment similar to Tony Blair’s call to UK universities to recruit an additional 10,000 international students over the next five years.
The Association of International Educators has appealed to the four government agencies that oversee foreign students to coordinate their policies, which contradict each other. The association has also asked that restrictions on foreign scholars’ access to US laboratories be lifted and that US consulates be allowed in some cases to waive the requirement that visa applicants appear in person for interview.
In a report, Restoring US Competitiveness for International Students and Scholars, the association describes “an international education landscape that has been transformed in recent years to which the US has been curiously slow to respond”. Citing the UK, it says: “Numerous countries have implemented proactive recruiting strategies to attract international students and have adjusted their immigration and work laws to create a more welcoming climate.”
Meanwhile, India and China for example, which send huge numbers of students to the US, are improving higher education at home. Moreover the European Higher Education Area has pledged to attract more foreign students to Europe.
Scholars who want to study in the US remain caught in the visa bureaucracy and “the US government is in worse disarray on this matter than it was before 9/11”, the report states. To attract “the knowledge innovation and skills we need from around the world”, it adds, the US must create “a climate that encourages the contributions of international talent”.
National commission criticises falling standards
US universities and colleges expect that a government report this month (September) will criticise the price and the effectiveness of higher education and will recommend changes to force down costs and increase access and accountability. The Bush administration is moving to implement many of the recommendations even before the final draft of the report is out, while university associations are mobilising opposition.
The report is the work of the National Commission on the Future of Higher Education set up this year to address America’s relative slide in higher education attainment compared with other industrialised nations. Many students graduate without the skills employers say they need. The proportion of the world’s science and engineering graduates is projected to fall to 15 percent by 2010, compared with 50 percent in 1970.
US higher education needs to improve in dramatic ways, the latest draft of the commission’s report says. Past attainments have encouraged complacency and universities are increasingly risk averse and at times, self-satisfied and unduly expensive, it adds.
That harsh language was toned down from earlier drafts after universities objected to being accused of letting standards slip in the undergraduate curriculum and tolerating a campus culture that seems to promote underachievement, anti-intellectualism and excessive socialising. The commission also deleted references to spending increases being driven by competition for prestige and to faculty members focusing on research over teaching; and it added a clause acknowledging that state budget cuts and red tape imposed by national and state governments contributed to operating costs.
But higher education groups remain irate and are digging in for a fight. David Ward, president of the American Council for Education and one of the commission’s 19 members, is refusing to sign its report because, he says it blames the sector for problems that have many other causes such as poor prepartion of students in primary and secondary schools.
The 1,000-member Association of American Colleges and Universities also protests that the recommendations would, if followed, significantly damage the quality of learning for many college students. In particular the group complains that the commission is calling for standardised tests to assess students’ achievements without specifying what it is that students ought to know.
Uganda
New corporal punishment ban
Corporal punishment in schools has been outlawed after two cases of severe beating by teachers — one of which left a 20-year-old student unable to walk. Education minister Geraldine Bitamazire says many teachers are torturing students under the guise of enforcing discipline.
John Mbabazi, director of education says teachers breaking the new rule will be sacked. Headteachers and local education officials have been ordered to report teachers who cane students to the ministry of education. “Corporal punishment for students in schools must stop with immediate effect,” says Mbabazi.
The ban follows an incident in Mandela Secondary School in northern Uganda on August 2. Five students were admitted into hospital with severe head injuries after being assaulted by their teachers. The students had failed to report a fight between two other students and the teacher decided to punish the entire dormitory.
In mid-August Beatrice Achieng, a 20-year-old form five (class XI) student at Katikamu Seventh Day Adventist School, in Lowero district, north of Kampala, received severe back injuries in a beating by her geography teacher for failing to complete an assignment. She remains in hospital and cannot walk unaided.
In addition to the ban on caning, the government has urged schools to stop punishing pupils by forcing them to do manual labour and instead give them extra homework or other education-related sanctions. Current punishments include fetching firewood for teachers, digging holes and filling them up again, digging in the school garden for several days, cutting wood and making charcoal, fetching water and uprooting tree stumps.
Schools will henceforth have to keep records of disciplinary actions, indicating the type of offence, punishment and details of who administered it.
France
Sciences Po’s integration initiative
In an initiative started in 2001, talented young people from deprived Parisian suburbs have enrolled in a special programme at the elite Institute for Political Studies (Sciences Po). They receive the same teaching and qualification as Sciences Po’s other 5,000 students. But an invisible line continues to divide them from students from more privileged backgrounds.
On one side of the line are the concours, named after the regular written entrance examination. Before taking the test, most of them go through a preparation course, which can cost up to € 2,000 (Rs.1.1 lakh). On the other are the zeps — 60 first-year students who have to pass an oral exam to get in. Zep is an acronym designating the banlieues (suburbs) around the city where they live. Sciences Po co-operates with 23 high schools in the banlieues where the teachers decide which students can prepare, free of charge, for the oral exam.
Sixteen years ago, 18-year-old Houria Khemissi moved from Algeria to the poor Paris suburb of La Courneuve. At Sciences Po, Houria, a naturalised French citizen, socialises almost exclusively withzeps, many of whom are also the children of immigrants. She says it’s “pure coincidence”. But in the cafeteria, another zep, 19-year-old Mustapha Namous, also talks only with other zeps.
The Sciences Po leadership is trying to encourage the zeps and the concours to mix more. It says that in the second year at the latest, full integration is achieved as demonstrated by the large number ofzeps playing a part in student associations.
But friendships that thrive outside the campus are exceptional. Often the concours enjoy expensive activities in their free time — which creates a divide. Roughly a quarter of students at Sciences Po come from families with an annual household income surpassing €145,000 (Rs.79 lakh), says director Richard Descoings — prosperity enjoyed by just 2 percent of French households. He strongly believes that the institute is in need of “social renewal” and he sees the programme as a way of moving in this direction. Intelligence has nothing to do with background, as the zeps’ good academic record shows. Two-thirds receive a state scholarship of €6,100 (Rs.3.35 lakh) a year to cover living expenses. Most are exempt from paying fees — which can be as high as €5,000 a year.
The programme has its detractors. No one explicitly says that students from the banlieues are damaging France’s elite but, off the record, several students claim that the zep exams are easier, and they get the better internships in the US.
China
Student unrest fear
China’s rising tide of civil unrest has mainly involved workers and peasants, but the government is acutely aware of the danger of student discontent. Student anger has historically been a forerunner to wider civil discontent. Graduate unemployment is rising, and students form an educated, media-savvy group better able than most to articulate their dissatisfaction and more likely to demand political change.
Students have often led the way in national protests against corrupt or oppressive officials and, as far back as the May Fourth Movement of 1919, personal grievances have often escalated into wider campaigns.
There have been several student protests this year. In June, up to 10,000 students in Zhengzhou ran riot through the campus, smashing classrooms and offices and clashing with police. The unrest took place at the private Shengda Economic, Trade and Management College, affiliated to Zhengzhou University. The students were angry that the college proposed to award diplomas in its name rather than of the university, as promised. The change was the result of guidelines from the ministry of education to prevent seemingly impressive qualifications being handed out by second-rate institutions.
Also in June, thousands of students at Sichuan University hurled bottles and barrels out of windows in protest after university authorities cut power to their dorms at night. Although the protests show no signs of linking up, the government will be keen to minimise awareness of their occurrence and to prevent anything similar to last year’s anti-Japanese riots, which were initially supported by the government but got out of control.
Australia
Strine trips foreign students
Foreign students arriving in Australia are struggling with ‘Strine’. They fail to understand the truncated words that render sentences meaningless to outsiders. A survey of foreign students found that many were initially mystified by the way Australians speak. An Australian student might say to a friend from India: “Goodonya mite, owyergoinalright? Did you have brekkie before you came to uni? I couldn’t make it yesterday coz I took a sickie but that was because of all the booze I drank at the footie.”
Words such as “brekkie” for breakfast, “sickie” for sick day and “footie” for football are part of the truncation that international students find bewildering, according to Peter Kell and Gillian Vogl of the University of Wollongong.
The researchers surveyed Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese and Taiwanese students. They noted that foreign students who learn a more formal English were unaware of the way local accents, fast speech and Australian colloquialism would limit their understanding. One student said she was once the only Asian in a group and did not understand a word of what was said, because everybody talked slang.
“It is not only the English language that prevents students from speaking and mixing with local students but also knowing what to speak about,” say the researchers. “They also have more difficulty adjusting to the independent learning required in the West.”
The prohibition of alcohol also makes it harder for students from Muslim backgrounds to mix with local students for whom drinking is part of campus culture. The researchers conclude that foreign students often need less academic preparation and more help with developing cultural and lifestyle connections to help them understand Australian English.
(Compiled from Times Educational Supplement and Times Higher Education Supplement)
