- •Eleven plus exam
- •[Edit] Within the Tripartite System
- •[Edit] Structure
- •[Edit] Current practice
- •[Edit] Scoring
- •[Edit] Northern Ireland
- •[Edit] Controversy
- •Education in England
- •[Edit] Primary and secondary education
- •[Edit] The state-funded school system
- •[Edit] School years
- •[Edit] Curriculum
- •[Edit] School governance
- •[Edit] Secondary schools by intake
- •[Edit] Independent schools
- •[Edit] Education by means other than schooling
- •[Edit] Further education
- •[Edit] Higher education
- •[Edit] Postgraduate education
- •[Edit] Specialist qualifications
- •[Edit] Fees
- •[Edit] Adult education
- •[Edit] Progression
- •[Edit] Criticism
[Edit] Progression
2007 statistics:[32] Percentage of population aged 19-64 who have progressed to each level:
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National Qualifications Framework (NQF) Level 2 and above: 70.7% (highest among 25-29 y/o - 76.9%)
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NQF Level 3 and above: 50.6% (highest among 25-29 y/o - 57.7%)
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NQF Level 4 and above: 30.9% (highest among 30-34 y/o - 39.1%)
[Edit] Criticism
The Confederation of British Industry is complaining of falling academic standards. Employers often have problems hiring young people who are literate and numerate, and who have good employability skills, such as problem solving, teamworking and time management. As a result, employers either have to pay for employees' remedial education, or they must hire foreign candidates.[33][34]
Katharine Birbalsingh has written of the problems she perceives in the English education system. She cites unruly and emotionally disturbed pupils, difficulty for a teacher in getting a class to listen, broken homes, bad teachers who cannot be dismissed and government policies encouraging "soft" subjects. Birbalsingh has visited schools in Jamaica and India where pupils are desperate to gain the kind of education to which pupils (and their parents) in her own school were indifferent. She was a deputy head teacher in south London until she spoke at a Conservative Party Conference in 2010 and was immediately sacked.[35] Frank Chalk, who taught at an inner city school for ten years before resigning in frustration, makes similar claims.[36]
A survey of 2000 teachers by The Guardian in 2011 cited a recurring reason for not enjoying the job. A lack of trust was referred to by respondents in the survey's "free text" area for extra comments, and related to senior staff, parents and governments.[37] Writing about her own reasons for leaving teaching, a contributing editor to the newspaper's Guardian Teacher Network described the realisation of needing to leave the profession as having slowly crept up on her. Being a mature entrant, she questioned things in her aspiration to improve education and was reluctant to "be moulded into a standard shape".[38]