I stumbled upon a research document produced in 1999, titled “A century of change”
its contents made good reading take a look a pupil numbers
It then goes onto talk about literacy
During this time we have had massive changes in technology, from a low technology
Coal, steam & iron based economy of the Victorian era, to a point where a number of our homes are powered by nuclear reactors, we put men on the moon, we can put space probes outside our solar system and land other probes on planets with precision accuracy millions of miles away.
We have phones that only 30 years ago were similar to “Star Trek “communicators
and a number of homes have the internet, giving worldwide communication.
Manufacturing as moved on from the days of machining to a few thousands of an inch to computer controlled machining centres that can machine to 5 microns and do it every time, to compete in this ever changing world we need to up-grade the skill set of our people and steal back the advantage we once had producing innovative products.
Strangely though a number of the people who currently have leadership roles in society, were taught by Engineers, accountants, mathematicians and English specialists demobbed from the military after the war and later went into teaching armed with only a few pencils, bits of paper and dedication, to work with.
I still owe a personal debt of thanks to my Physics & Chemistry teacher’s for the extra lessons given to me and an my friend so we could get our ‘O’ levels, only years later did I find out that both did overtime with no extra pay.
Now we move to 2011, the latest Government figures show that about 1 kid in 3 leaves Primary school without having reached a reasonable level in reading, writing and Mathematics.
It’s very easy to stand on a soap box and blame our teachers, but over the last 50 years I don’t believe the dedication of our teachers as changed one bit
They are still dedicated committed professionals working lousy hours, focused on developing our kids and a lot of these working hours are un-paid.
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The thing that does seem to have changed is the curriculum and that’s where I feel the debate on Education should start, giving our teachers the right tools for the job.
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