How increasing quality is lowering standards

This week, I had an incredibly interesting and worrying conversation with someone in the UK education sector. Without presenting any details, the gist of the conversation was about how their ‘OFSTED outstanding’ was avoiding delivery of ‘difficult’ and ‘commercially relevant’ subjects in the IT sector as this would risk their ‘achievement rate’.

Sadly, this is not the first time I have heard this, more is the pity that this would be difficult to prove.

The demands of the IT sector, preclude that our youngsters NEED to have commercially relevant skills and that in order for the UK to thrive in the international IT sector. Yet educators, are interested in serving the league tables and the status mongers, not their customers and the service they are expected to provide.

Imagine what disappointment it must be, to have gained a nationally recognized qualification and discover that employers have no need for your skills as they are too low, out of date or irrelevant.

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