I NOTE yet again S Nicholson’s comments (Letters, January 22). The comments seem to be fixated on some rose-tinted opinion of education in 1958.
And I do not think the children have changed at all in that time, but the expectations of them has, as they have a great deal more information to absorb.
League tables reveal their focus when you look at the ‘good’ subjects.
Jim Young is concerned by the lack of vocational training offered to students
It is clearly aimed at academia which only goes to reflect the basis on which those who designed the current education system see as success.
This only suits less than half the student intake. It is time that we accepted that we need to educate all, not just those who fit a narrow academic profile, but the majority who will follow a vocational career path.
Interesting to note that there have been 2.2 million workers from the EU filling mainly vocational jobs which we have, with our focus on academia, failed to train our own students for. If we were to give the vocational students the education that fits their abilities perhaps we would turn them on to reading and maths in a context that they can identify with.
Look no further than Germany with the gymnasiums and technical schools and then look at their economy.
JIM YOUNG
Blythe Place
Bicester
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