5/14/2008 6:52:00 AM
The Times 13 May
The English education system has become “fatally distorted” by an unhealthy fixation with an anachronistic examinations system that ill prepares students for university, a leading academic has warned. Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard University in the US and a senior research fellow at Oxford University, said that teenagers in England were handicapped by an over-emphasis on timed examinations and by being forced to chose between arts and science subjects too early. Professor Ferguson blamed “the tyranny of A levels” for forcing teenagers into narrowly defined paths of study and called for them to be replaced with a baccalaureate style qualification covering a broad mix of arts and science subjects and involving an element of independent research rather than assessment purely by examinations. Teaching in America, where teenagers and undergraduates study a much broader curriculum, had made him realised that “what we are doing here is wrong,” Professor Ferguson said. At Harvard, students start by taking eight courses spanning science, culture and ethics. “I can think of few worst preparations for Harvard than a typical English secondary education,” he said. Technological advances in the world meant that it was necessary for all students to have a broad based education and to continue maths after the age of 16, he said. But too often the A level system did not allow this. Times
Curriculum / Quality Assurance
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