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Tuesday 18 September 2012

EBacc-wards

I made this: BookElf at 11:46 am

This is my personal opinion-not that of LeedsBookClub. Sometimes you just need to get a rant off your chest!

In a world where a one in five adults cannot find a plumber in a phone book, teaching the elite to remember is not the way to raise standards.

The proposed reforms to the Key Stage 4 qualification are yet another example of this government selling a generation short. By divided people (not only children take GCSEs, despite what the majority of sub editors seem to think) into those who can sit for three hours and perform at their best on one day in one year and the rest of us, Gove is turning students into show ponies.

We don’t need a generation where 9 out of 10 are made to feel failures; we need a nation confident in using recognisable tools to live their lives; research, the ability to compare and contrast and in depth analysis of problems. Exams don’t always do this.

Again, this is an example of where the knowledge of what librarians can bring to education would be useful. Librarians can offer students a chance to learn real life skills needed to succeed in more than just one exam. We can teach them to find, evaluate, and use information in a way that is suitable to them. Yet again, the role of librarians in education is side-lined in favour of headline grabbing reforms that ignore our worth and belittle our experiences.

The Baccalaureate might be the buzz word on the continent, but right now we have people coming into education again, often after years, to be told that their aspirations and achievements are useless. This is not only a backwards step, it is also a dangerous one.

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