It's Official

Rinoa

Confirmation of what we suspected. Young people just aren't that smart. Little wonder they end up renting.

Young adults in England have scored among the lowest results in the industrialised world in international literacy and numeracy tests.
A major study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows how England's 16 to 24-year-olds are falling behind their Asian and European counterparts.

The OECD's Andreas Schleicher warned of a shrinking pool of skilled workers. Unlike other developed countries, the study also showed that young people in England are no better at these tests than older people, in the 55 to 65 age range. When this is weighted with other factors, such as the socio-economic background of people taking the test, it shows that England is the only country in the survey where results are going backwards - with the older cohort better than the younger.

The study shows that there are 8.5 million adults in England and Northern Ireland with the numeracy levels of a 10-year-old.
"This shocking report shows England has some of the least literate and numerate young adults in the developed world," said Skills Minister Matthew Hancock.
"These are Labour's children, educated under a Labour government and force-fed a diet of dumbing down and low expectations."

Too much time spent on Mobile phones/iPads and too little time studying.

toot-tweet

Worrying statistics, if correct. Being taught how to do exams is very different to learning how to apply knowledge to questions.Tick box everything and no common sense - independent thought is unwelcome.

System

Confirms everything I've experienced.

michaels

There is a lot of wailing and knashing of teeth over 'education' - no one seems to want to contemplate the fact that perhaps we are just fick init.

Percy1983

Well it seems the problem is being clever is just the capacity to remember facts for a short term, to which I am useless.

On the flipside my logic and problem solving skills are much better and in the real world have got me much further than my GCSE results.

THE_MASKED_TURNIP

Who would ever trust an accountant who got himself into debt only to be bailed out by his parents whilst living under his mummy's roof? That must be why the first business failed.

vassa

Rinoa wrote: »

Too much time spent on Mobile phones/iPads and too little time studying.

Agree, except you missed TV. The best thing anyone can do is get rid of the 'idiot box'.

Also, it's not 'studying' that kids need, it's just doing real world stuff. Playing in gardens, building 'dens', exploring, cooking, reading...practical skills that people used to know but now don't.

Right there you've got problem solving, team work, understanding of basic construction, angles and materials, directional sense and the ability to string a proper sentence together.

TV is the reason we're getting thicker. I don't know what the absolute correct usage of certain punctuations and i don't know what adjectives, verbs and pronouns and all that is really, but i can spell much better than most of the people i know because i've read a lot since i was a child.

Ditch the screens, pick up the books and get outside to do stuff, it's the only way we can reverse this trend.

Percy1983

THE_MASKED_TURNIP wrote: »

Who would ever trust an accountant who got himself into debt only to be bailed out by his parents whilst living under his mummy's roof? That must be why the first business failed.

I wouldn't trust one either.

Good job I am just an accountant who built but debts while earning very little while training then paid them back when income was up. As for running businesses, I have only ever started 2 and both are still running now and turning a profit (the second is a sister company to the first).

Maybe thats why many people trust me and not the one you are referring to.

wotsthat

Rinoa wrote: »

Too much time spent on Mobile phones/iPads and too little time studying.

Unfortunately government response for at least two decades has been to mask the decline in standards by making exams easier. Fine if we're just looking for YoY improvements - not so great when comparing against the rest of the world.

Currently helping my daughter revise for a November GCSE maths sitting and going through past papers. Anyone that doesn't get a C needs to take a good look at themselves with parents and teachers being suitably ashamed too.

Carl31

I think some of the problem is where kids are brought up in childcare
instead of being raised by parents, who care about their future, hence encourage practical things, and repeatedly drum into them the need to get a good job, and do well at school, they're raised by people that are not really bothered where the end up, and are so restricted in their interaction wit the children, and advice they gave could result in a law suit against them

wotsthat

Carl31 wrote: »

I think some of the problem is where kids are brought up in childcare instead of being raised by parents, who care about their future, hence encourage practical things, and repeatedly drum into them the need to get a good job, and do well at school, they're raised by people that are not really bothered where the end up, and are so restricted in their interaction wit the children, and advice they gave could result in a law suit against them

So the middle-class parents who are stumping up a decent proportion of income to put their kids in childcare will be those dragging down the maths attainment average?

Dream on.