A level results

[anotheoldgit]

Is anyone else sick to the back teeth with the OTT coverage of the A level results.

I do not wish to take any credit from the youngsters who have worked hard and achieved their successful results, and I extend my commiserations to those who did not achieve the results they had wished for.

BUT. do we need to witness each year, scenes of screaming girls, jumping up and down, hugging each other and sobbing, (and that also includes the boys).

What are we to do with this future increasingly over qualified work force, will they consider themselves too clever to get their hands dirty.

I would much rather witness scenes of youngsters, jumping up and down, because they had successfully completed their apprenticeships as engineers, plumbers, electricians, motor fitters etc. etc.

Much more use to the country, don't you think? Although of coures there will always be a need for academics, but surely not in the numbers we are churning them out now.

[mike1222]

I speak as an old "Grammar School" lad from the 50s/60s and I know that I am going to leave myself open to accusations of being a dinosaur, but the modern education standards in this country are abysmal - no matter what our government and our esteemed Schools Minister, Mr Balls, says.

Nearly everyone, it seems, goes to "Uni" (is it called that nowadays because it's too difficult to spell?) nowadays, so much so that employers do not attach the same importance to it as they used to. I feel that the same applies to A levels.

I know this is a massive generalisation, but it seems that most 15/16/17 year olds are barely literate and numerate nowadays. I seem to remember a few years ago a group of A level students taking a 1950s O level paper (can't remember the subject) and most of them failed dismally. What they didn't realise was that the actual paper they had sat was a really 1950s 11 plus exam! That just about says it all for me about the drop in standards!

[anotheoldgit]

The Telegraph is particularly fond of photos of twins celebrating, though I don't know whether they found any this time.

No jno, but the Daily Mail did find Triplets,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-104566 6/Triplets-gain-A-grade-A-Levels-to-Oxford.htm l