When it comes to education, there is indeed, as your editorial stated, "a lot to learn from Finland" (Morning Star, 14/01/19). It is all too obvious that private schools, with 6% of all children attending them, have far too many places in our so-called "top" universities, and too much influence in the running of the country, especially economically and politically. Measures are clearly needed to redress some balance, perhaps by taxing fees and reducing their financial benefits gained through their charitable status, or by preventing them using lightly regulated examinations like the Pre-Us which include coursework as part of the grading process.
The constant use of OECD/Pisa data to "evaluate student performance and make comparisons" with other countries has to stop, especially as these are often flawed, not even based on a common test, but involving students in different countries answering different questions! Increasing pressure to succeed in education is an important reason for the rising incidence of depression in young people, but here at least, there is a relatively simple solution.
With scandals revealed over public school pupils being able to avoid the more difficult exams, both at GCSE and A-level, examinations causing huge stress and anxiety amongst pupils in the state sector, and universities, desperate to get "bums on seats", offering increasing numbers of unconditional offers, isn`t it time to get rid of the majority of external examinations, and follow the Finnish example of having one pupil performance test only? Teacher assessment has always provided a far more accurate indication of pupils` potential anyway!
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