The New Diplomas

[Nick]

I am engaged in a long running correspondence about this, which I will gradually trickle into this thread.

Essentially they are meant to be "vocational "equivalents to GCSEs and A levels. They are nothing of the sort. That tosser Ed Balls recently declared them to be " a great success" which is garbage. Why? They don't start till 2008. That's why.

They are going to be rated HIGHER than A levels for university entry, but only take halkf of each week to study. And to make sure that kids get recruited to them (to hasten the demise of A levels) schools will be bribed with an extra £1000 pa per pupil for all those taking Diplomas.

This one really stinks!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7149994.stm

[Snoopy]

Agreed!
Nick is right.

[Bar Wench]

Ridiculous especially as a perfectly viable alternative already exists!

http://www.ibo.org/diploma/

[Nick]

Moreover, the vocational element is entirely theoretical. You could do a Diploma in say construction, um, without actually building anything. You would just study how things might be built. But the Govt is determined to make them work, hence the bribes and the propaganda. Anyone with kids who get pushed towards these ask the school about the £1000 p head bounty money and see what they say. This is an educational experiment set to fail, again!

[Grumpmeister]

Depends, if they are vocationally based then studying for half the week then spending the other half in a practical setting could be a good idea.

Having said that Balls up strikes me as a complete moron so good ideas will be rare.

[Nick]

Well they aren't. It's a pile off shite

[tel]

Dropped it seems.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7155843.stm

[Bar Wench]

"The net consequence was to midentify a group of young people in every secondary school who despite their achievements against their personal potential would have been deemed to have failed against the new qualifications."

Can anyone understand what that means?

Is midentify even a word?

[Uncle Mort]

I think that's a different Diploma.  But who really knows anymore? 

[Nick]

I find it completely baffling, and I am meant to know this stuff!