Slashdot Mirror
Encouraging Students to Drop Mathematics
Coryoth writes "The BBC is reporting that students in the UK are being encouraged to drop math at the senior levels. It seems that schools are seeking to boost their standing on league tables by encouraging students not to take 'hard' subjects like mathematics, in favor of easier subjects in which they are assured good grades. The result is Universities being forced to provide remedial math classes for science students who haven't done math for two years. The BBC provides a comparison between Chinese and UK university entrance tests — a comparison that makes the UK look woefully behind."
I can't tell you about schools in the UK, but I know for a fact that this scheme would not work here in Ontario. Universities keep an "unofficial" ranking of the academic standing of high-schools throughout the province. This doesn't mean "this school has a really high average!". This ranking takes into account subject focus and quality of education. For example, a high-school that has a large number of graduates with high averages that go on to study in Engineering, Medicine, Physics, Math etc. are given a high rating for academic subjects. Schools with a large number of graduates that go on to study Music, Literature, Art, etc. are given a high rating for the Arts.
You could almost think of this as a normalizing factor (I like to call it alpha). They multiply each student's graduating average by their school's alpha, and it is this normalized result that they use to rank students for acceptance.
Aikon-
I learnt the knowledge to answer the UK test school at 14. I have not idea how to start the Chinese test.
*Shrug* I learned the stuff for the Chinese test at 14 in 9th grade geometry class in a US public high school. Your mileage may vary.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
This whole situation reminds me of Bruce Schneier's observation that when deep quality metrics are unavailable, customers will base their decisions on shallow metrics instead. And then the market will adapt, driving bankrupt anyone who invests in quality that cannot be shallowly measured.
In this example, schools are the manufacturers, students are the products, and parents (i.e. localities) are the customers. The customers demand performance on a shallow metric, and boom, schools adapt to deliver.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
I would personally avoid electrician unless you are sure that is what you want to do with your life. My father was an electrician, and being into electronics I made sure to learn the electrical trade as a backup, and it saved me when things got tough, but no longer. Having a very strong electronic and physics background, I can run circles around a lot of the newer electrical engineers, but they have increased the license requirements in my state to levels where I can't work construction again. It is no longer up to the employer to determine your skill level, and your skill level is based solely on the number of DOCUMENTED hours that you have worked under a licensed electrician. Tracing back all the different companies I worked under proved impossible. A lot of construction is short term projects for electricians. Talking to other people, it is getting the same in a lot of states. I have factory certificates that let me completely rebuild 480V electronic motor controls, have wired 2300V gear and motors, and have 10 years of electrical experience, but I am legally not allowed to wire anything in my own house because of the new laws. If I got a job, it would have to be as a helper. I could make better money working a low level retail job with no experience and not being in the weather.
I know that the people working on septic systems in the area have the same problem, you have to have several years of documented work under someone elses license, or you can't even touch your own system. So, I would assume that plumbing is headed the same direction. I understand that it is a good idea to make people get licenses to make sure they know what they are doing, but I think it is a bad idea to assume that someone doesn't know anything, just because they didn't go through an official apprentice program. If you leave a licensed trade for a little while, there is a good chance that you will miss an update to the license requirement and the associated grandfather clause, and never catch back up. Stick with mechanic, welder, or anything that you can get certified but don't have to be licensed and you will have a lot more options in the future.
"If I could go back in time when I was starting university I for sure would tell my 18 year old self to have fun programming in their spare time, but to train as an electrician, plumber or mechanic, so they will actually have some job security, good working conditions and some actual spare time to have fun programming in."
I have noticed that many educated, professional people tend to glamorize the "skilled trades." As someone with many family members who are electricians and plumbers, I often have to wonder if the people who dream of "job security and a 40 hour work week" have any knowledge of what a tradesman's work day is actually like.
They typically get up extremely early (5:00 am or so) and work very hard all day, often in dangerous conditions. There is virtually no chance of meaningful career advancement. Union shops are typically more concerned with "time in grade" than actual skill or talent, and you will get to watch as the best, highest-paying jobs get assigned to people with inferior skills simply because those particular workers have been around longer. Eventually you will be one of the old-timers who gets to work the slightly higher-paying jobs, and that's pretty much the extent of your prospects of advancement. The job security that you seem to imagine does not actually exist - as a plumber or electrician you can look forward to spending weeks at a time unemployed, then working 80+ hours/week for two consecutive weeks. Often you will have to travel long distances and live away from your family for days at a time in order to be close to the job site.
I suppose it's one of those "the grass is always greener on the other side" things, but the rosy image that most slashdotters seem to have of a tradesman's life is very inaccurate.