BS: Different Education Systems

Subject: Different Education Systems
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 06:39 PM

In the Formal vs Informal Education thread, there has been mention of different qualifications and I am curious to know how the system works in different countries.

I am out of date but in my time in the uk, you started your secondary education as a first former and in the fifth year, you took either O levels or CSEs, (O levels being the higher) and that was basically the end of your compulsory education - I'd guess at around 16 yrs old.

If you did well enough at these, you could to do further education and do A levels (or other courses like national diplomas) which specialised a little more and you typically took 3 and this lasted a further 2 years.

After this you could go on to Higher Education and choose and take a degree (or slightly lower - a Higher National Diploma) which typically lasted 3 years before you gained you BA, BSc or what ever. From then on I think it was another year for a Masters degree and I don't know from there on.

The HNC (Higher National Certificate) I mentioned in the other thread was a course originally designed for people on day release from their place of work, took 2 years to gain and is about the equivilant of the first year of a degree. This course is also now offered as a 9 month (or less) intensive course for people like myself who have been out of work for a while to gain a qualification meaningful to employers.

How does this all compare to other counties and how far out of touch am I with the UK?

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: Llanfair
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 07:37 PM

I'm not sure, Jon, both my kids left school at 16 with barely a CSE between them. NVQ'S seem to be the way to gain qualifications in the job your'e doing. Both my lads are getting their education now!! Bron.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 09:13 PM

What are NVQ's, please?

Over here it is expected or hoped that a child starts kindergarten at 5/6 yrs old; goes through Grammar, aka Elementary, School to 1st-6th grade, then on to Junior High, which is usually 7th & 8th, sometimes 9th grades, then on to High School for grades 10-12, graduating with a High School diploma.

Soemtimes Elementary school only goes through 4th grade, then they go on to Middle School, for usually 5 & 6, soemtimes 7th, then as above.

After high school, if they want a college degree, they can go for an 2 yr. Associates degree, or a 4 yr. Bachelor. After that, they can go on to get a Master's degree, then even further for a Ph.D.

If they drop out of high school, they can eventually take a test for a General Equivalency Degree, GED, which is supposed to be the equal of a high school diploma. By and large, I think it has come to be more respected than when I received mine in 1971.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: Susan of DT
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 09:29 PM

I work with nontraditional higher education in the US.

While as associate degree is thought of as two years of full time study and the baccalaureate is four years (which can include the optional associate), fewer and fewer students are starting college at 18, going to school full time and completing the degree in 2 or 4 years. More people are going part time while working, stopping out, and coming back.

I work with Thomas Edison State College, New Jersey's distance learning college for adults. We offer associate, bachelors, and masters degrees in lots of areas with many options of how to complete credits toward the degree. A typical student is 39 years old and comes to us with 60 to 90 credits earned over the last 20 years from 4 or 5 colleges, some CLEP exams, millitary training, etc. We help the student find what (s)he needs to complete the degree requirements.

Of course we are fully accredited. Sorry for the commercial. You can e-mail me for info using member e-mail or [e-mail].

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 09:31 PM

NVQ - National Vocational Qualification. Essentially a recognition that skills learned on the job, and needed on the job are significant.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: ceitagh
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 09:37 PM

Canada and the States have a pretty much equivalent educational system, with minor differences. In highschool, at least in the Ontario educational system, the classes are split into Basic, General, and Advanced streams, Basic being pretty much for the learning disadvantaged, General addressing a practical, trades oriented education, and Advanced taking in all the theoretical stuff. There's been some problems with this (taking anything but Advanced labels you as dumb, and theres been some complaint that it creates upper and lower 'classes' in the school) so they are changing the names to something else. Colleges and Universities mean something slightly difference in Canada too...Colleges generally offer shorter 2 or 3 year educations in applied trades, and have lower entrance requirements and different requirements when hiring teachers and such like. If you want to get your BA, MA, PhD etc, you have to go to a University. If you want to go to University, you have to have taken the Advanced stream in highschool.

Ontario is also the only province which still has a grade 13, which will be phased out in 4 years. Grade 13 courses are called Ontario Academic Credits, and cover a lot of the same material as a first year introductory University course. OAC's are all Advanced stream courses, and probably the most worth while courses in my highschool experience....so of course they'll be mostly cut out of the new curriculum.

Sorry for the treatise. :-)

Ceitagh

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: Brendy
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 09:40 PM

I did a M.Ed in four years; another two would have given me a PhD.

And I hated school!!!!

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 09:47 PM

Interesting so far, it seems like there are a few differences in the "traditional" accedemic routes but it appears that when the batchelors degree (which in the UK we normaly just call degrees as we don't have the assosciate degrees), the systems become the same in the US and the UK.

I am skeptical about the NVQ system over here but maybe in time, they will prove worth while and I hope so and if they do, I wish they existed years ago. The problem I have would still exist though even under the current system (as far as I can tell - I think level 3 is the highest) and I worked at a supervisory level in IT - sort of job you now need a minimum of the HNC for - at leaset until schizophrenia set in... ah well such is life - I now have to gain a qualification to teach me to do what I've proven in industry I can do.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 09:50 PM

Don't apoglogise Ceitagh, I for one would like to know especially as I now speak to people from different countries and the say I have a XYZ or graduated from high school and I don't really no what they mean - I like this sort of learning - hate school learning though.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 11:21 PM

Basically (as a disgruntled and saddened former teacher), the US system is the inculcation of the incomprehensible to the indifferent by the incompetent.

I'm sure this thread will be around a bit, and I'll get back to it. The harder we try to "fix" things here though, the worse it gets.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Jun 00 - 12:04 AM

The best system seems to be that of the Camiroi culture.

Any alums here?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Jun 00 - 12:39 AM

SusanDT, thanks for posting about non-trad students. We see more and more of them, here, at our junior college and university, and I think it is wonderful and inspiring. I've several friends who've done so.

I really do know how to spell, too, folks!**BG** Just never took typing!

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Jun 00 - 12:44 AM

Yeah, Max was gonna put in a spellchecker I heard, but then someone got mad becuase they thought it would be a spielchecker, and that might autostop the BS. So it was voted down.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: Llanfair
Date: 03 Jun 00 - 09:37 AM

I see NVQ's as very positive qualifications, particularly in the caring profession, where the assessment is thorough and promotes good practice and communication. I trained as an assessor when I was a manager, and it was the most challenging training I ever did.
I'm planning on doing a teaching qualification in the autumn, so I can teach the odd night school course. You don't have to have a specialist subject to do FE teaching, thank goodness. Bron.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 03 Jun 00 - 10:24 AM

I suppose streaming is another issue in the UK. I experienced both comphrensive and the grammar/secondary modern systems and I am very much in favour of the comprehensive system which allows more flexibilty of movement and I have been through both systems (first two years Ysgol John Bright a comprehensive in Llandudno, rest, Skinner's School as stuufy old boys grammar school in Tunbridge Wells) so have at least seen both as a pupil.

Oddly enough, out of 4 brothers, the only one who didn't at least get as far as starting to take A levels was the one who had to go the Kent system and got stuck in a Secondary Modern in Tunbridge Wells. I could understand it if any of us could see any noticible difference in intellegence between us.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jun 00 - 01:09 PM

As an NVQ assesor working with Electrical Apprentices the system does work and works well as long as the candidate has access to assessors. People who knock it may well not have tried it, are not very self motivated or have struggled to get assessed. It is not a race to get your NVQ in a set time so a good portfolio with lots of cross refrencing is achievable, for all ages. Keith

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: sophocleese
Date: 03 Jun 00 - 03:22 PM

They removed the streaming from Ontario highschools a few years ago. I'm of two minds about streaming. I think like any other educational idea it works for some and not for others. It did mean that by choosing general science in grade ten I could avoid dissecting creatures without having to raise a public fuss about it, I ended up as the only girl in the class that year, alas not at a stage, personally, where I could have taken advantage of it. I do not like the implications though of "better" and "worse" that streaming encourages. A result of these unfortunate connotations was that people ended up taking the advanced levels when they weren't ready for them, missed out on learning in the other levels which they could have used and ended up frustrated, which helps nobody. In only a couple of years the first batch of Ontario students without grade 13 will be hitting the universities and colleges. Battle plans to deal with the double enrollment are already being drawn up.

Subject: RE: BS: Different Education Systems
From: ceitagh
Date: 03 Jun 00 - 03:52 PM

Soph, highschool in Ontario is still streamed, the only grade they destreamed was grade 9, and that was a total disaster. I was in the first class to go thru the newly destreamed gr. 9, and the teachers had so much trouble teaching us enough that we could go into the stream of our choice the next year without leaving slower students behind....it was a real pain, and put my class at a disadvantage in advanced math and science courses the rest of the way thru. Streaming is useful, I think, since it can target different strengths and goals, but i know that at least in my highschool, the kids taking General were looked down at as underacheivers, and mostly they lived down to expectations....i'm worried about what is going to happen to trades in this country if they're not given more respect.

Pax,
Ceitagh