In Britain everyone is complaining that A levels and GCSEs are too easy, and standards are slipping
Too many students get high marks, so it is difficult to find the best students for university. Yet at the same time employers are complaining that basic literacy is poor.
In Greece we have the opposite story:
What purpose does it serve to have an tertiary education entrance system that allows a candidate to register at a university faculty with a grade of 1.53, when 20 is the maximum and 10 is the pass mark?Since yesterday, this has been the question people have been asking those in charge of the country’s education system — politicians and academics.
This case (albeit exceptional) of a candidate being accepted into the faculty of German philology with such a scandalously low examination score average indicates all too clearly the degree to which the current university entrance system has diverged from whatever its original goals might have been, and marks the sad end of an age that all of us would definitely like to forget.
At least as of next year, an attempt will be made to take some tentative step towards averting a complete breakdown of the system, since candidates will have to achieve at least the pass mark in the entrance exams in order to be accepted into the country’s universities and technical colleges. more
This is the university system which refuses to allow any type of quality control or performance assessment, tries to prevent foreign universities setting up in competition in Greece and as only recently agreed to speed up accreditation of foreign degrees. So much for the European Common Higher Education!
At least in communist countries, the standards in the subjects that were taught were high, and schools were good. Greece couldn't even get that bit right!
And now there are further complaints about the quality of the education here:
Every year around this time, the announcement of university entrance grades paves the way for a new wave of entrants into our higher education system. Their journey often leads nowhere, however; not just when it comes to acquiring a profession, but even as regards the cultivation of knowledge. It is commonly known, after all, that neither our schools nor universities fulfill their mission adequately. The rare exceptions only prove the rule.The matter is crucial, since the quality of education largely determines a country's level of cultural development as well as its economic capability. Investment in human potential is widely considered the most important and productive of all. Yet in Greece the education system has no solid internal logic, it makes insufficient use of modern technology, and it does not cultivate things like judgment and independent thinking among pupils and students. Everyone talks about the information society, but little is done to bring it about.
The fact is that we are champions at producing semi-literate graduates. Especially in large faculties, students can get a degree with little study. That does not bother anyone, because of the prevailing perception that a degree is a passport to a profession. But the Greek economy can no longer absorb the high number of university and technical college graduates. Restricting the number of university entrants is clearly not a solution, but degrees should be given only to those who deserve them.
This is why radical reform is needed, beyond the changes in entrance exams of past decades. Conditions are ripe for such a policy leap that will establish a new mentality, introduce curriculum changes and create a reliable mechanism to assess teachers and students at all levels. Public opinion has largely shed its prejudices and is ready to accept daring changes.
This idea that assessment is necessary or even useful has been a long time coming, and will be hard fought by teachers, as well as parents who expect to buy both education and exam results for their children.
But it is a sad conclusion of the government of a transition economy (for that is what Greece is) that it needs a less well educated workforce rather than a more educated one. When Greece is way behind the new EU Member States in use of IT in education and in society in general, to lower standards further can only push Greece further down the league.
There are plenty of jobs that graduates could do especially in a growing economy, but when badly educated older people with habits of corruption and cronyism have many higher jobs in government and industry, they will never get on the ladder let alone become senior managers.
Eastern Europe managed an exceptional transition between 1991 and 2004 to a market economy. When will Greece start?
