exam results

[Tawi2]

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[maria_and_matt]

Always encourage him to the maximum,whatever he wants to do help him as far along the road as you can,some of us didnt have the backing of positive parents and regret it to this dayOh yeah,and dont forget his power-kite

he tells me off for encouraging him now, he thinks i go over the top, i just want him to know that whatever he decides to do i will be backing him up 100%, he is a smart boy, he achieved good results with minimal effort. i would like to see how he'd do if he actually puts the effort in.

and matt i know from time to time you read my post here (often to correct my grammar), i just want you to know i am so proud of you, and i wish you would talk to me more rather than be staring at computer screen or yelling abuse at your friends in xbox love yah, peace out

[somebody]

apprenticeships hardly exist any more.

and where will they come from andy if it's not thru uni ? do you mean the practical skills gained by many Filipinos here, who applied for a student visa to do a nvq 'working' in a care home while 'studying' at 'joe bloggs' college

you might not use the knowledge you gained from your degree in the job you do, but the employer knows at least you had the capacity to pass your degree, something some school leavers couldn't do.

everyone is different andy, so what if you end up as a manager at mc dons with your arts degree if that's what you want to do

Thats the point we need more Apprenticeships and vocational course. Degrees are needed but not 60-70 percent of the nations students surely?

What uni course should a plumber/sparky going on maybe later he or she may want to do a degree if they go in to managment but learning to write flash reports wont help them in the early days.
Before you say there are plenty of apprenticeships avaiable there are not.

Many of my managers and directors were apprentices or went to on some vocational course.

As I mentioned before when i'm involved in employing people from trainnees to highly specialised IT experts. Im not intrested in if they can pass an exam, I want to know what they retain from it, what skills they have. Could they manage people, can they manage themsleves.

Rarely do I find people to work in projects or ongoing operations. where handing in some paperwork and then rememebering facts and formulas etc for an exam are the required requirments. So while a indicator the person has some intelligence and what not. There is far more required.

A huge cost to our is finding people is retraining people once they are employed. I know how our engineering department before we started the extra testing had to constantly fill the gaps in new candidates basic skills and make allowances while they catch.

We had Electronic engineers with a bsc after their name who couldn't use test equipment, unable solder or perform hands on work in general! Compuer science gradutes who can't code the list could go on.

The degrees they do seem to try and cram into much and worried to much about teaching them how to aim for the top. They forget you need to move on need to in many careers do the basics correctly first. Also not evryone can be the leader. Everyone finds there level, sorry 70 percent of the youth of england cant all be managment surely?
So why dont they give them the skills to get going the rest they can learn as they go along as the theory for the managment side will be out of date or they will have forgotten how to write the long report.

Lets face Joe very few phills would come here degree holders or not if econmonic factors were not involved. As we both know many are highly skilled and qualified like you, I know some of them personally. But many do gain practical skills and experience then move onto nursing etc and stay in the UK or move on.

A lot of the people teaching staff and careers advisors seem to think anything but a degree is of no use. That they must always try and make the pupil feel good and manual work/engineering for example why do that. Why be a nurse when you can be a doctor. Also ways good to aim high but you need to be a realist and ensure they reach at least a basic level
Chucking them on a degree course and them either failling or that their degree mark so poor they wasted their time is crueler surely? Now they are three or four years behind their peers.

Plenty of school friends got to a certain level gcse, a level, btec diploma or hnd and they never needed a degree. Others took the trainnee or apprenticeship route and worked there way to a satisfying career.
Many have exceeded the ones who went the degree route.

No one soultion fits all

[Peanutz]

Definitely agree with you Andy.

A degree will not make you desirable to be hired. Who analyse your CV will look at your experience and skills and most importantly 'Attitude'.
These are the key things that will give you a chance to be hired.

[KeithD]

Are any Uni's doing degrees in gang bangs, oral sex, prostitution (or does that come under business studies)?

[aromulus]

Are any Uni's doing degrees in gang bangs, oral sex, prostitution (or does that come under business studies)?

I am not quite sure, but I know for a fact that some uni's are giving courses on "Victoria and David Beckam"...

Pretty much the same I reckon......

[joebloggs]

Thats the point we need more Apprenticeships and vocational course. Degrees are needed but not 60-70 percent of the nations students surely?

As I mentioned before when i'm involved in employing people from trainnees to highly specialised IT experts. Im not intrested in if they can pass an exam, I want to know what they retain from it, what skills they have. Could they manage people, can they manage themsleves.

We had Electronic engineers with a bsc after their name who couldn't use test equipment, unable solder or perform hands on work in general! Compuer science gradutes who can't code the list could go on.

Definitely agree with you Andy.

A degree will not make you desirable to be hired. Who analyse your CV will look at your experience and skills and most importantly 'Attitude'.
These are the key things that will give you a chance to be hired.

60-70% of the pop , as my sister would say' what planet are you on ?'
i think only 1/3 of the pop ever go to uni, and i bet, like in everything else, were at the bottom of any euro tables on the % of pop who attended uni.

your not interested if they have or can pass an exam , so you would let someone who can manage others or themselves touch your customers server and at best they've installed windows xp at home , over someone who has a mcse or even a IT degree , at least they have an idea what a bit, nibble and byte is

as for engs and computer grads, who couldn't code or use test equipment, you cannot expect them to know every bit of equipment out there, or code in every language under the sun straight away.

attitude is nothing compared to experience and qualification, being able to do the job correctly is what's important not being able to blag about it.

sure we need more apprenticeships, but we need more working class kids going to uni, it shouldn't be a right for just the well off, it should be a right for everyone who is capable.

[somebody]

60-70% of the pop , as my sister would say' what planet are you on ?'
i think only 1/3 of the pop ever go to uni, and i bet, like in everything else, were at the bottom of any euro tables on the % of pop who attended uni.

your not interested if they have or can pass an exam , so you would let someone who can manage others or themselves touch your customers server and at best they've installed windows xp at home , over someone who has a mcse or even a IT degree , at least they have an idea what a bit, nibble and byte is

as for engs and computer grads, who couldn't code or use test equipment, you cannot expect them to know every bit of equipment out there, or code in every language under the sun straight away.

attitude is nothing compared to experience and qualification, being able to do the job correctly is what's important not being able to blag about it.

sure we need more apprenticeships, but we need more working class kids going to uni, it shouldn't be a right for just the well off, it should be a right for everyone who is capable.

Just wrote out a long reply and it dissapeared as something about me beign logged in already. Anyways will give u in a nutshell a response.

Tony Bliar in 2006 wanted 50 percent and at the moment all schools education authorties want to push there pupils in to uni. They dont care what they do there but it looks good for next years figures.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ed...ce-415761.html


This passage from the above page was of intrest.

The UK was well below Australia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Korea, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden, whose figures rose between 33 per cent and 169 per cent over the same period.

Mr Schleicher said most of the these countries had a strong vocational strand of education - along the lines recommended by the inquiry into 14 to 19 education by the former chief schools inspector Sir Mike Tomlinson but rejected by Mr Blair.

The Prime Minister had been worried before the last election that replacing A-levels and GCSE with an overarching diploma covering both academic and vocational qualifications would be seized on by the Conservatives as evidence he was scrapping the "gold standard" of education.


Ie because of Bliars (its suposed to be that way round) pride Pupils suffer as we must get more uni students
Hes a link i found not sure of the underlying message of the website but the bullet points made sense to me

http://www.economicshelp.org/2007/10...niversity.html

Many of those we test who cant give examples of their work, or dont seem to outside of the classroom use there computing skills seem to fail our own tests during the interview process. We all know paper mcse certs holders etc.

Grr i wrote pages and pages and dont have the time to replicate.

Maybe another day but i do know some pupils i work with its just a waste of time them going to uni to do a degree any degree while others should go at all costs even when its a hardship for the family.

But to many will get no benefit and fail possibly they will attempt another degree and have a huge gap or two faillures on their cv which employers notice and from friedns experience this really affects their chances and of course they have all the debt and none of the benefits. Many friends are still recovering ten years later and have not started pension funds while young as they had to catch up on the other debts

I totally agree uni should be avaiable to those who really need it at from any background not just the upper classes

But the silly herding people into uni to do a degree any degree for figures is downright evil on the poor pupil who may suffer for theit entire life.

Oh ps the test equipment in question with several of these new workers was a multimeter any electronic engineer should be abale to measure current and voltage surely. On the language tip yes not all lanuages but the ones they claim to be qualififed in would help

[joebloggs]

We all know paper mcse certs holders etc.

I think them days are well gone Andy, i think they ended around 2000 when Ms changed to adaptive testing. cannot just download the questions and answers like in the days of mcse nt4

but at least a mcse is more useful than a degree if your applying for a job in IT support etc.

Andy this country does NVQ's, there are many here studying them, filipinos coming to the UK to do NVQ's, and you know its being abused as cheap labour and illegal working by dodgy colleges above your local take away.

sure the gov should use a combination of nvq's, apprenticeships and uni degrees to educate the school leavers, but i don't think its up to the gov to tell you what you can or can't do. equal opportunities for all, but i don't think all kids would want to go to uni, many want out of school and start earning some money, and yes, don't forget these school leavers will have to pay your pension, so you should want the best for them

[RickyR]

Just to clarify, I'm not against a university education. As 'Somebody' said, it's all about what degree is being studied, what it is worth and how will it be used. But doing a degree in History just for the sake of having a degree, isn't a good enough reason to justify 4 years and tens of the thousands of pounds.
I'm not suggesting for a moment that everyone take a career at sea, its worked for me and just to mention that unlike Filipino Seafarers I normally work 1 month on / 1 month off (Filipino working conditions unfortunately are still catching up) which enables a lot of quality time with my family.

I think encouraging and supporting careers as Electricians, Plumbers and any other trade should be encouraged in schools. Taking an apprenticeship shouldn't be looked down up on. Unfortunately the focus in schools is that everyone should do the same, and there seems to be a strong focus on people becoming IT programmers or business management.

Then again in IT, as has been mentioned earlier, the best programmers I have met are people who knew C++ and Visual Basic at 14 years old, and were working in IT at 18 having never been to Uni. On the flip side, I've met people who have done degrees in IT and can write software which looks fine, but has to debugged by someone who actually understands the code. I'm not saying that a degree in IT isn't the way forward, but it isn't the answer in every case.

The Education system needs changes, but will that happen?

[KeithD]

Always write long posts in Notepad.

[somebody]

I think them days are well gone Andy, i think they ended around 2000 when Ms changed to adaptive testing. cannot just download the questions and answers like in the days of mcse nt4

but at least a mcse is more useful than a degree if your applying for a job in IT support etc.

Andy this country does NVQ's, there are many here studying them, filipinos coming to the UK to do NVQ's, and you know its being abused as cheap labour and illegal working by dodgy colleges above your local take away.

sure the gov should use a combination of nvq's, apprenticeships and uni degrees to educate the school leavers, but i don't think its up to the gov to tell you what you can or can't do. equal opportunities for all, but i don't think all kids would want to go to uni, many want out of school and start earning some money, and yes, don't forget these school leavers will have to pay your pension, so you should want the best for them

Nope plenty of people brain dumping still Mate trust me. Still have drones who come off boot camps with no prectical experience think all we want is someone who has crammed and passed an exam or two. Adaptive makes it tougher but not impossible to be coacheed though them.


Regarding the younger generation doing well

Exactly I want them to do well and the forcing people into schemes to fix targets take them off the dole or what have yuou really bugs me.

I know there are NVq's and plenty of other options other than the typical degree which will never suit all but way to many pupils are pressured into them.
The goverment shouldn't tell you what to do but it does seem pressure and spin is put on various levels of the education system for headlines

As well the school leaver possibly paying my state pension like me they should have there own one or some form of savings from early age.Are you aware of the huge issue of student loans, seen way to many people still burdened with the debt years later and often they didn't get a result which made the pain worth it. This are the ones who often have to put off saving in a pension scheme. They will burden the country far more surely?

Many who started the schemes when trainees or college leavers now i know have a decent pension pot sometimes very decent one as their wages have gone up and many are now self employed or owners of Business Employing others They also didn't waste huge amounts of goverment money in attempting to keep up with the joneses or ensure schools sent enough pupils off to uni

We have trainee Field engineers in another department they have degree holders in there and plenty who just went to college or straight from school. From the three different groups there is no particular pattern from what I can see.

The company wants people with a good attitude, mechnical and electrical know how. But mostly they want them to be trained up in the way they want them to work.

Now I know after a few years many are on 25-30k plus then of course regional allowances and good benefits. Chance of progression blah blah
So what is the point if a Pupil ask the careers advisor ( i remeber asking one "helping " me while at school what she had doen in the past a lot of mumbling happened ) who says oh yeah but look with your grades you may just clear at a uni in this degree not a popular uni or not many takers for the course "but your have a degree" Go on try it, even if its for the experience

So the pupil goes off changes course to media studies as they offered him a place after a year as not for him eventually passes the course but nothing special and needs a job. Theres a recession on the public services no longer require people with a degree any degree.
So the pupil relies at their school qualfications which were technolgy based and gets on a trainee scheme. They find themsleves selected due to doing well in the assements. They get a trainee pay rate which means they can pay off the student loan but not great.
A friend at school joined the trainee scheme at 18 now is fully qualified and earning a decent wage no debt imposed on them and able to bulid there life much quicker. Due to starting earlier in the career they pick up things quickly ready to adapt not set in there ways. Move on to managment.

The orignal pupil four/five years older and of course he has a degree much wiser doesn't find it so easy to pick up things or be told what to do. He has a degree those supervising/mentoring him for example his old class mate dont.

Do I know of examples of this maybe not people from the same school but plenty of Engineers in our company who are doing ok wish they had not been advised when they knew there path go on get a degree it will make you a better person.

[joebloggs]

and how long would someone last andy with a paper mcse ? a day , i'm sure the numbers are nothing like they were around 2000, when you could take all your exams in 1wk and memorise 200 questions on each and pass

sure going to uni for the sake of it is not a good idea, but even if you think a history degree is useless, it shows in the majority of cases that the student can at least study, read and write at a higher level than a school leaver who doesn't. try a level 3 course at uni and see the standard required.

as for programming, i was one of them kids, at 18-21 i was earning a lot more money then, then i do now. but someone who has been to uni will have studied the boring theory side, something self taught ones will not be bothered doing, such as programming techniques to minimize bugs and be able to write a structured program, like JSP - showing my age .


you need the theory so you reduce the risk of something up, and yes it all becomes experience, something you cannot buy, and it takes time . that's why i'm sure if 2 people had the same experience and one had a degree, the one with a degree would get the job, but if one person had a degree and no experience and another had experience of the job, the one with just the experience would probably get the job.

and i'm sure being at sea is a great life and adventure, but once your wed, with kids, then for me, they would come first.

[Peanutz]

Most millionaires and successful people has been dropped off from Uni

[somebody]

and how long would someone last andy with a paper mcse ? a day , i'm sure the numbers are nothing like they were around 2000, when you could take all your exams in 1wk and memorise 200 questions on each and pass

sure going to uni for the sake of it is not a good idea, but even if you think a history degree is useless, it shows in the majority of cases that the student can at least study, read and write at a higher level than a school leaver who doesn't. try a level 3 course at uni and see the standard required.

as for programming, i was one of them kids, at 18-21 i was earning a lot more money then, then i do now. but someone who has been to uni will have studied the boring theory side, something self taught ones will not be bothered doing, such as programming techniques to minimize bugs and be able to write a structured program, like JSP - showing my age .


you need the theory so you reduce the risk of something up, and yes it all becomes experience, something you cannot buy, and it takes time . that's why i'm sure if 2 people had the same experience and one had a degree, the one with a degree would get the job, but if one person had a degree and no experience and another had experience of the job, the one with just the experience would probably get the job.

and i'm sure being at sea is a great life and adventure, but once your wed, with kids, then for me, they would come first.

Many people who had certs used to get bumped higher in the ranks for a job as it was all points scoring certainly at our workplace. We found it was costing a fortune in retraining or simply then trying to get rid of those who simply couldn't hack it (sacking a person is not that easy or cheap as you know)
So like Many places we may ask for those with qualifications but we ask those with evidence based cv's to apply.

If we needed a person for a team leader, supervisor or junior manager for example we may ask to see qualifications but we also look for those with team leader skills possibly developed outside.
Competency based interviewing if done and in depth checks and tests done you can prove people can do what they claim. You also don’t think oh he has a business management degree and this other guy doesn't but has all the technical skills and experience of the company just because he has developed real world team leader and management skills he is any worse.

That’s why if they program or create things such as websites. We ask them to show us examples and then ask them to write or comment on existing lines of text or website. To see if they really can.

Many from the fresh out of Uni and no experience whether in the bedroom or in a charity job creating/admining the charities website. Would waffle on a lot but often not give us the responses we would expect. The guy who has actually done it we would ensure can do what we ask. Would you not give them the same opportunities?

It certainly beats relying on CV's, qualifications, and a couple of interviews.

I’m not involved so much but the apps writing team we have are a mixed bunch while many have degrees some have moved over from departments and are self taught. The ones I deal with if i need their assistance are normally the ones who are self taught it seems they are more opened minded and ready to take on more challenges. Why I don’t know but they are more can do.
I do know that they simply would not have got the job if they didn't produce the goods, while possibly the uni trained ones rely on techniques they learned at uni who knows possibly had to much help in getting it right?
Also From experience I know that in all levels of my Education when creating I.T based projects it was not about always completing the project but documenting that you could you may not get an A grade but definitely a pass or even a B. But we both know what people think on paper may work and what actually happens are very different.
Those who had to develop skills outside of education generally have to actually make a working product otherwise your like well you can’t do it can you.

I know the point of Degrees but don’t rely on it solely make sure you can show what you actually can do and be able to prove it