http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... -education

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14683133

I'd be interested to know your thoughts/criticism on that

I am not going to criticise him. He is right. I think that the numbers doing sciences and engineering need to increase and if this has to be done with free tuition and grants then that is the price we need to pay. Programming is very useful in business and should be taught, rather than the theory. Though maybe a vocational course at technical colleges would give a decent grounding for those wanting to work as programmers. Or even short courses for macros etc. The problem is that ministers interfere and teachers have an incentive to pick easier exam boards to get better results to get a good league table response. The system suits everyone apart from kids and business.

Reminds me of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ePIexUwUPM#at=15

+1

Ah the joys of an education system that recognises exam passes but doesn't take into account the difficulty level of the subject.
Having been educated in Scotland I never really saw the point of all the separate exam boards in England/Wales. It doesn't seem to do you any good. The free market doesn't appear to be working in terms of driving up standards (quite the opposite) as it all comes down to passes which gives the easiest to pass examinations a leg up.

Targets and goals can be useful drivers but when they end up directing the entire system something has gone terribly wrong.

That is why I think we need to scrap all but one of the exam boards and then league tables will be representative. Though I suspect that no minister will do that because of "reducing competition" or some other crap. If every school was to do the Oxbridge exam board we could actually see how much worse kids are doing compared to private schools.

Exactly right. Competing exam boards have driven down standards to get more business.