The more we 'improve' the worse we become.

[Workingman]

The current Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) results are in and the UK has slipped or stagnated.

We pay 'outstanding heads' more than the PM and allow them to run multiple schools. We have ushered in Academies in order to raise standards; and we have changed the GCSE gradings to get more pupils on the old 'five good GCSEs' level.

Where, then, are the improvements we were promised when measured against out international competitors? They have not materialised. We might be seen to be improving within our own educational bubble, but that is doubtful.

There is plenty of evidence, in many of our own educational reports, that things are not going as planned, but we plough on anyway. We need to stop changing things every five minutes - a moratorium. We then need to step back and have a good hard look at what is and has been done, and the fewer people from the education elite doing the looking the better.

"Experts" are saying that we have lost a decade. Realists would say it is more like a generation, or two.

[cromwell]

In many cases people learn by repetition, or rote. But that has not been fashionable for a long time. I don't see what is wrong with studying the best European education systems and nicking their best ideas!
I'd be careful about going down the Far East route though. They work children very hard - too hard imo. Korea has the highest rates of child suicide in the world. We don't need that.

[Suff]

Seems to me that in our Empire days we were a hybrid of inventive design and nicking the best bits of everyone else's ideas then incorporating them into our own. It kept us ahead, nimble and winning.

Since we gave up the Empire it seems we've become introverted, pedantic and a bunch of losers in the main. Whilst we are still the best design and innovation location in the world for many engineering disciplines, we seem to have lost the plot for a lot of other things.

It's one of the reasons I wanted us out of the EU. We need a good sharp backside kicking and we're not going to get it in the EU. The only possible end result of the UK staying in the EU was that the UK winds up like Belgium, where Scotland tries to hold up a trade treaty because they want to keep the nice cozy overpriced and over regulated market, that doesn't work and the heavy mob descend and force them to comply.

All the while giving up everything that made us British to gain some quasi legitimacy in an ever increasing squabble fest called the European Union. It's not as if the EU has the common identity of the US where they will drop any internal bickering to fend of the outsider, before returning to internal bickering. In the EU most of the countries see outsiders as a useful tool to "get one over on" the other competing states.

So we descend into mediocrity. It's not just the UK, other countries in the EU have similar problems.

I have high hopes that once we leave the EU and they apply the cardio paddles and hit the shock button, on the UK business and economy, that leaders will emerge to give us direction and quality. I'm willing to have my hopes crushed under a steamroller of EU also ran's. But I'm hoping anyway.

[Workingman]

Suff, you really do need to stop blaming the EU for everything. The rot in education set in before we even joined the Common Market never mind the EU.

Things changed with the introduction of Comprehensives, the middle school era, and the scrapping of O Levels and CSEs for GCSEs. There was also the introduction of more subjects into the curriculum meaning less time for subjects to be studied in-depth, so they were skimmed. The school day was also shortened. Teaching methods also changed to become 'pupil centred' and coursework became an integral part of the final result. All of these things have had an impact on the overall standard of education, and not for the better.

Cromwell mentions the dropping of rote learning, which has been a disaster, especially when added to the introduction of calculators and the use of computers as learning tools. We have entered a period where remembering things is almost a curse and to be avoided.

Not to worry, my iObject will tell me the answer... if only I could remember which buttons to press!

[Suff]

Ah, yes, I know. I like to blame the EU. But then they have a LOT to be blamed for. I notice that an arch Remain pundit, Niall Ferguson, has stepped up and said "I was wrong" then proceeded to rip the EU a new one on their failings.

But here is a thought. I worked with a long time IT Manager, close to retirement and we were talking about outsourcing. He told me that a manager of his, retired at this time, had a motto. Never outsource a mess. Because all you wind up with is a mess at a distance which is 10 times more difficult to fix.

With the EU we allowed expectations, laws and rules, from other countries, to shape and constrain our actions on education. At the same time we fostered something like the "losers club" situation that the German Minister talked about if the UK left the EU.

So long as we were not the "worst" in the EU it was OK. Never mind the fact that the standards in the EU were dropping, so long as we didn't drop any faster that was OK.

This is not a failing of the EU. This is a failing of the UK "within" the EU. The EU is what it is. I thought I'd been fairly clear over the years. It is the way in which the UK interacts with the EU which is the issue, not the EU in and of itself. For most of the countries in the EU, it works perfectly for them. The UK? Not so much so.

Now we have to take notice. Now it's only us who will be in control of our rules and our expectations and we find that we've drifted a long way down the world scale whist obsessed with the EU and how it does things.

Perhaps we can now emerge from the belief that Political focus makes good education and back to professional teachers driving professional education. Sadly the higher ranks of education are now infested with politicians. Another problem to solve.

On a brighter note, it's not just the UK or even EU countries with this problem. I noticed that Israel is also wrestling with the same issue and trying to understand how their standards have slipped so far.