Subscribe
Notify of
guest

15 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Stephen Walsh
Stephen Walsh
1 year ago

Just 6.2% of pupils leave school without qualifications, yet nearly 20% of 20 to 30 years olds have no qualifications. Presumably the difference is migrants with no qualifications? The solution proposed here seems to risk lowering standards at the highest level. If over 94% of pupils can gain a qualification, then that qualification may not be worth very much. Do Germans want “a fairer society” or a prosperous and successful one?

Ray Andrews
Ray Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Stephen Walsh

Maybe they’ll do like the Americans and decide that Equity is all that matters, thus the entire system must be dumbed down until the Blacks and the Arabs can succeed.

Ray Andrews
Ray Andrews
1 year ago
Reply to  Stephen Walsh

Maybe they’ll do like the Americans and decide that Equity is all that matters, thus the entire system must be dumbed down until the Blacks and the Arabs can succeed.

Stephen Walsh
Stephen Walsh
1 year ago

Just 6.2% of pupils leave school without qualifications, yet nearly 20% of 20 to 30 years olds have no qualifications. Presumably the difference is migrants with no qualifications? The solution proposed here seems to risk lowering standards at the highest level. If over 94% of pupils can gain a qualification, then that qualification may not be worth very much. Do Germans want “a fairer society” or a prosperous and successful one?

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

“its education system requires nothing short of a complete overhaul if it wants to build a fairer society”

This quote highlights the usual mindset of the left. A complete disruption of a working system to creat a “fairer society”. A Marxist program that invariably ends badly.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

“its education system requires nothing short of a complete overhaul if it wants to build a fairer society”

This quote highlights the usual mindset of the left. A complete disruption of a working system to creat a “fairer society”. A Marxist program that invariably ends badly.

Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
1 year ago

Pure BS
The German system works fine, precisely because of this tiering. Adding morepeople to university would just lower academic stadards and put brakes onthe german economy.
The demagoguery that every pupil can and should go to university is a very costly lie.

Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
1 year ago

Pure BS
The German system works fine, precisely because of this tiering. Adding morepeople to university would just lower academic stadards and put brakes onthe german economy.
The demagoguery that every pupil can and should go to university is a very costly lie.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
1 year ago

This to me is an article which is about nothing. If it was news, it would be fake news. Somebody has an algorithm which shows that youngsters in the lowest tier will take 180 years to get somewhere useful – 6 generations. No calculation or algorithm can project forward in this way. The danger is that you can write an algorithm to give you an answer which supports your thesis – or one which gives the opposite answer. Douglas Adams knew this.
Within and before 180 years have passed, different skills will be needed. People will return to training for the church (which church?), more people will be needed locally, like handy-people (Did I really type handy-people? Oops, did it again). Germany still has factory workers and managers but they will disappear. Every other person will become a hairdresser or a manicurist. To solve the ‘hairdresser problem’ they will have to develop a space industry.
It reminds me of the climate change algorithms. You get your laptop, feed in a few facts, design an algorithm and the answer is, of course – 42.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

What about the glut of telephone sanitisers that may well arise in 180 years tine?

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago

We can launch them off into a space in a giant Ark.

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
1 year ago

We can launch them off into a space in a giant Ark.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

What about the glut of telephone sanitisers that may well arise in 180 years tine?

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
1 year ago

This to me is an article which is about nothing. If it was news, it would be fake news. Somebody has an algorithm which shows that youngsters in the lowest tier will take 180 years to get somewhere useful – 6 generations. No calculation or algorithm can project forward in this way. The danger is that you can write an algorithm to give you an answer which supports your thesis – or one which gives the opposite answer. Douglas Adams knew this.
Within and before 180 years have passed, different skills will be needed. People will return to training for the church (which church?), more people will be needed locally, like handy-people (Did I really type handy-people? Oops, did it again). Germany still has factory workers and managers but they will disappear. Every other person will become a hairdresser or a manicurist. To solve the ‘hairdresser problem’ they will have to develop a space industry.
It reminds me of the climate change algorithms. You get your laptop, feed in a few facts, design an algorithm and the answer is, of course – 42.

chris Barton
chris Barton
1 year ago

We can have equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome, unless you want to live in a type of Stalinist Russia or Maoist China.

chris Barton
chris Barton
1 year ago

We can have equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome, unless you want to live in a type of Stalinist Russia or Maoist China.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago

According to an analysis by the Children’s Commissioner for England in 2018, 18% of children in England (that’s nearly 100k) left education at 18 without reaching Level 2 attainment, i.e. without obtaining five GCSEs grade A* to C, or equivalent. I couldn’t find out how many had nothing what-so-ever, but, given the continual grade inflation for GCSEs, if they haven’t got Level 2 attainment then it’s pretty much nothing anyway. So, 6.2% would be a massive achievement in England.

Linda Hutchinson
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago

According to an analysis by the Children’s Commissioner for England in 2018, 18% of children in England (that’s nearly 100k) left education at 18 without reaching Level 2 attainment, i.e. without obtaining five GCSEs grade A* to C, or equivalent. I couldn’t find out how many had nothing what-so-ever, but, given the continual grade inflation for GCSEs, if they haven’t got Level 2 attainment then it’s pretty much nothing anyway. So, 6.2% would be a massive achievement in England.

Mark Goodhand
Mark Goodhand
1 year ago

“it would take a child whose parents’ earnings are in the lowest 10% bracket six generations, or 180 years, to earn anywhere near the average income”
This is a problem to the extent that it’s a lack of connections or inherited wealth that keeps capable poor children down, but in a society that has been meritocratic for a long time you wouldn’t expect much social mobility, because traits that lead to success are highly heritable.

Mark Goodhand
Mark Goodhand
1 year ago

“it would take a child whose parents’ earnings are in the lowest 10% bracket six generations, or 180 years, to earn anywhere near the average income”
This is a problem to the extent that it’s a lack of connections or inherited wealth that keeps capable poor children down, but in a society that has been meritocratic for a long time you wouldn’t expect much social mobility, because traits that lead to success are highly heritable.

Dermot O'Sullivan
Dermot O'Sullivan
1 year ago

its education system requires nothing short of a complete overhaul if it wants to build a fairer society and repair the cracks in the foundation upon which ‘Made in Germany’ is built.
That doesn’t make sense to me. If the system has produced the ‘Made in Germany’ premium branding (and products hopefully!) why would it need a complete overhaul?
Streaming kids at 12 doesn’t appeal to me however, but maybe it works?

Dermot O'Sullivan
Dermot O'Sullivan
1 year ago

its education system requires nothing short of a complete overhaul if it wants to build a fairer society and repair the cracks in the foundation upon which ‘Made in Germany’ is built.
That doesn’t make sense to me. If the system has produced the ‘Made in Germany’ premium branding (and products hopefully!) why would it need a complete overhaul?
Streaming kids at 12 doesn’t appeal to me however, but maybe it works?

Tim Watkin
Tim Watkin
1 year ago

No evidence is presented that tiering is the reason for the low attainment, or to explain why tiering, which has worked so well for so long, is suddenly a bad thing.

I suppose that, based on arguments like this, Germany is going to make the same disastrous mistake Britain did in the 70s. Accelerating the cultural and economic dominance of Asia, where tiering is very common and arguments like this don’t get the same traction.

Tim Watkin
Tim Watkin
1 year ago

No evidence is presented that tiering is the reason for the low attainment, or to explain why tiering, which has worked so well for so long, is suddenly a bad thing.

I suppose that, based on arguments like this, Germany is going to make the same disastrous mistake Britain did in the 70s. Accelerating the cultural and economic dominance of Asia, where tiering is very common and arguments like this don’t get the same traction.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

I dislike Germany as a place, and their people, but given our ” Ejjukayshin” system, we are hardly in a position to criticise them?

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

pipl att skole him Englund gett veri gud lernin an ejjukayshin innit?

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

pipl att skole him Englund gett veri gud lernin an ejjukayshin innit?

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

I dislike Germany as a place, and their people, but given our ” Ejjukayshin” system, we are hardly in a position to criticise them?

Chris Milburn
Chris Milburn
1 year ago

I suggest the author read “Coming Apart” or one of an abundance of other good reference material on why social mobility has decreased in modern society. There are logical reasons that can’t be blamed on lack of opportunity or social supports. IQ is a very strong predictor of lifetime earning potential. People with high IQ marry others with high IQ. IQ is highly heritable. Society is highly technical and hard to navigate if your IQ isn’t high. One could argue that all of those facts “aren’t fair”, but they are facts nonetheless. Blaming the school system is facile and evades all of these realities.

Chris Milburn
Chris Milburn
1 year ago

I suggest the author read “Coming Apart” or one of an abundance of other good reference material on why social mobility has decreased in modern society. There are logical reasons that can’t be blamed on lack of opportunity or social supports. IQ is a very strong predictor of lifetime earning potential. People with high IQ marry others with high IQ. IQ is highly heritable. Society is highly technical and hard to navigate if your IQ isn’t high. One could argue that all of those facts “aren’t fair”, but they are facts nonetheless. Blaming the school system is facile and evades all of these realities.