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‘Nation of dropouts’ warning as UK drops in education league
Anna Davis, Education Correspondent7 Sep 2010
Britain is at risk of producing a generation of dropouts, education experts warned today.
New figures show a dramatic drop in graduation rates, with east European countries now ahead of the UK. The report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development today shows Britain has plummeted from third to 15th in a table measuring graduation rates around the world. Poland and Slovakia are among the nations that have passed the UK.
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: “Other countries are preparing to play a leading role in the new-knowledge economy while we risk consigning a generation to the scrapheap of inactivity and being left behind.”
In 2000, Britain's graduation rate was 37 per cent. But by 2008 this had fallen to 34.9 per cent, below the average for an industrialised country. The Czech Republic, Switzerland, Iceland, Italy, Portugal and Turkey all increased their graduation rates between 2000 and 2008. Finland tops the league with an 80 per cent graduation rate.
Ms Hunt said: “We have plummeted down the graduate league table, going from a major player to a relegation candidate in less than a decade. The Coalition government's refusal to fund sufficient university places this summer will come back to haunt us.
“Unless urgent action is taken to reverse the punitive cuts planned for further and higher education, the situation is going to get much worse.”
The report notes countries with high graduation rates are more likely to develop a highly skilled labour force.
The Evening Standard has reported how up to 200,000 students are expected to miss out on university places this year, amid unprecedented competition for degrees. One in 12 A-levels were awarded the new A* grade, as the pass rate rose for the 28th year in a row and 661,000 candidates applied for university.
Christine Blower, general-secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “The OECD report paints a very clear picture — invest in education or pay the price. Low levels of education cost both the state and society dearly.”
Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: “While the UK compares well internationally in some categories there are areas which need to be addressed. We know that the attainment gap between rich and poor is totally unacceptable.
“That is why we are focusing on raising standards of behaviour, introducing the pupil premium which focuses money on poorer pupils, and giving schools greater freedoms in how they use their resources.”
Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts said: “The OECD report shows that our Higher Education faces some real challenges, which the Government is determined to tackle. We have already taken action to boost student numbers by funding an extra 10,000 places and more people than ever are starting university this autumn.
“Going to university is still a good investment. Graduates are more likely to be in work than non graduates and can expect to earn more over their lifetime.
“We are working to provide more educational opportunities for all ages to ensure that we have highly skilled, internationally competitive workforce. We have provided funding for an extra 50,000 apprenticeships.”
Universities UK today published a report saying the UK risks being overtaken academically because other countries are increasing investment in universities and research.
Reader views (9)
GCSEs go up, degrees come down? That suggests that GCSEs are getting easier and that standards are going down. Oh, everybody knows that, I forgot. Most schoolkids can't even wear atie properly, and what's with wearing trainers at school?
- Trevor, Wapping, 08/09/2010 08:49
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Blimey! Getting worse than it is today, I’m so glad I’ve moved to Hong Kong a month ago. I left behind a toilet bowl of a society and it sounds like the flush cycle is stepping up a gear. What with dropouts, and crime, and murders – no thanks to going back. I’ll stick with a polite society, a hard working society (even if not especially qualified) with hardly any crime any day – and that sadly isn’t the England I grew up in!
- Steve, Hong Kong and not going back to the UK, 08/09/2010 05:43
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Billions wasted. University drop outs an all time high and 20% of all school leavers unable to read, write and do basic arithmetic.
This is Labour's legacy. Chuck money at a problem and ignore the obvious.
- James, Braintree UK, 07/09/2010 20:12
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Sadly, it's not a matter of investment. It's a matter of throwing out a defective ideology that refuses to allow academic competition, refuses to recognise differing levels of innate ability, and penalises the most able by (metaphorically) tying their hands together.
The prevailing ideology is that all students are of equal ability (regardless of objective evidence to the contrary) so if any do less well than others, the assumption is that they are being failed by the teacher. As a consequence all teaching is aimed at the least able, and all the rest plod along behind them. Those who are supremely mediocre are able to get top marks by dotting every i and crossing every t. The truly talented get bored, discouraged, and finally humiliated by failing to get an A* because they made some silly mistake, on an exam that excluded anything of real difficulty for fear that the least able might actually fail.
No amount of money can fix a system that refuses to recognise mental ability, the very quality which it is supposed to be developing. A sports trainer working this way, would ban overtaking, and insist that everyone crossed the line together.
You think that's sarcasm? Actually, it's reality. Many schools have banned "competitive" sports in favour of vaguely aerobic activities with no concepts of competing, winning, or coming last. They've destroyed all concept of academic excellence, and now they're working on football!
- Nigel, London, 07/09/2010 18:25
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"A generation of dropouts"?
Doesn't it show - particularly in the House of Conmen and in the House of Frauds.
- Reuben Camara, Plot 1, Morecambe Compound, UKSSR, 07/09/2010 17:09
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The General Secretary of Education says "invest in education ... or pay the price". The amount of public money invested in education increased enormously while Labour was in power... the results speak for themselves. Raising standards of behaviour and aspirations, raising teacher standards and ensuring our schools aren't over-run by non-English speakers, will do far more to reverse the decline than throwing additional money at this problem.
- Abb, London, 07/09/2010 13:22
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I remember happier times when people had ability instead of chits of paper. People left school with common sense, and good literacy levels. Back then employers trained school leavers.
- Bob_P, East End, London, 07/09/2010 12:25
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Toties Cuts and Saving will help; I think not
- Fredrick, London, 07/09/2010 12:22
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At risk of producing 'a generation of dropouts'?
I'm sorry, but that horse has already bolted, and all the stable doors have been thrown wide open.
Britain is no longer the country that it was fifty, or even twenty years ago.
We have experienced a culture change on a dramatic scale, due mainly to widespread drugs and alcohol abuse, closely followed by hundreds of thousands of benefits dependents and benefit frauds, not to mention our 'open door' immigration policy over the past ten years to both 'migrant workers' and 'political refugees', added to this, the odd few thousand 'overseas students' who abandoned their courses,(If they ever started them), then forgot to go home, and remained to enjoy the largess of 'good old Britain, everybody's gravy train'.
-I wonder how many of those 'so important to the economy' immigrants are actually now in receipt of benefits?
There are no longer the millions of decently paid jobs there were in factories, mines and shipyards etc.in the days of 'industrial Britain' nor will they ever return.
We can't turn the clock back, but we can stop berating ourselves over 'falling standards', and accept our position in the 'new world'for what it is.
A once great empire, frantically dog-paddling just to try to equal the standards of the rest of Europe's major players, and apart for the privileged few, things can only go downhill for the rest of us.
- Huggy, Cumbernauld Scotland, 07/09/2010 12:21
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