Exams results are a fucking joke

Via Allan, one has to applaud the comments by this teacher from "the other place"*.

Harrow School, in west London, which sets its own literacy test, found some teenagers with A* grades had a "tenuous grip" on some aspects of language use.

English teacher Tom Wickson said staff had become "increasingly concerned" at standards expected of GCSE students.
...

Writing in the school magazine, Mr Wickson said: "Can't spell simple words and can't punctuate a simple sentence, but can still get an A grade in GCSE English? That can't be right, can it?

"Well, yes, at Harrow we frequently find that can be the case."

But of course we mustn't bash the students who have worked so hard for their, frankly, unbelievable results. The entire system has become utterly degraded; the very fact that the A* grade exists shows that. Either something is worth an A or it is not; the system should not require that "really good A grades" are denoted by a star unless the level required to get an A has dropped considerably. And recently (there were no A* grades when I was taking GSCEs in 1992 and 1993).

We were also required to do O Level papers for practice: they were considerably harder than GCSE. To attempt to argue that exams have not got easier is an impossible task; they have got easier. GCSE papers are easier than O Level. Fact.

That our system has become so degraded that Glasgow University has to hold remedial English classes for its English Literature undergraduates, for fuck's sake, shows this. You don't get onto the Eng. Lit. course at Glasgow Uni with anything less than an A in Eng. Lit. A Level; you should not need lessons in writing English.

No eighteen year old in the entire fucking country should need remedial lessons in reading and writing their own fucking language. I mean, what kind of fucking spastics are coming out of our schools these days? This is our own langugage, you stupid bastards; no wonder everyone looks down on the English and their pathetic lack of ability with everyone else's languages; we cannot even speak our own...

God, it's so fucking depressing.


* An Eton joke... Although, one should always remember that "Harrow wear their Y-fronts backwards" (this chant served two functions: firstly, it suggested that Harrow boys indulged in—and enjoyed—copious amounts of boy-on-boy action; secondly it suggested that they were so stupid that they were quite unable to put their pants on the correct way). I can't comment on whether or not "Harrow parents drive red buses"...