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  3. The government has finally grown sick of claims that GCSEs and A-levels are

The government has finally grown sick of claims that GCSEs and A-levels are

游客2024-01-02  25
问题     The government has finally grown sick of claims that GCSEs and A-levels are being dumbed down, it seems. In his speech to the Labour Party conference on September 26th, Ed Balls, the schools secretary, said he would create a new watchdog to oversee exams. The current regulator is to be broken in two, with one bit continuing to develop new syllabuses and qualifications and reporting to ministers. The other bit, independent of government and reporting directly to Parliament, is to guard against grade inflation.
    Mr. Balls draws parallels with Gordon Brown’ s first big step when he became chancellor in 1997. Relinquishing the Treasury’s power to set interest rates to an independent body is still, ten years later, regarded as his finest hour. Mr. Balls, as his chief economic adviser at the time, was one of the architects of that decision. Both men hope that the new exams watchdog will lead to similar plaudits.
    Britain’ s secondary-school exam results have every reason to be upwardly mobile. The government wants voters to believe their children are getting a good education, so it is keen on high grades. Schools respond by shopping around among exam boards for the easiest syllabuses and tests, and directing pupils towards the softest subjects. Exam boards navigate between losing the trust of universities and losing the patronage of schools. And the individuals setting and marking exams know that harshness may mean fewer candidates in future.
    The new arrangements may ensure that, in schools at least, bad exams do not drive out good. But they will have no effect on universities, where grade inflation is also rife. Three-fifths of all students now get at least an upper second, and between 2002 and 2006 the proportion of first-class honours degrees crept up from 9.1% to 11%.
    There are also signs that the value of English degrees is being eroded on the international market. On September 25th the Higher Education Policy Institute(HEPI), a think-tank, published the results of a survey of 15,000 English undergraduates. It turns out that they spend much less time studying than those elsewhere in Europe. The average English student puts in 26 hours a week: 14 taught hours and the rest on independent study, compared with 29 hours in Spain and 41 in Portugal. Nor is it that English students are skimping on their studies to run to paid jobs; students in other countries work harder outside university, too.
    HEPI’ s director, Bahram Bekhradnia, cautions against a simplistic interpretation. Hours taught do not equal hours spent learning, he says, pointing out that tailored tutorials for small groups are likely to transmit more knowledge than the lectures in enormous amphitheatres that are routine at some continental universities.
    But neither can the results be brushed away, he says. Foreign students may go elsewhere if they think an English undergraduate degree is content-light and poor value for money. This would spell financial disaster for many cash-strapped English universities. In 2004-05, the last year for which figures are available, they received? 1.7 billion in foreign students’ fees.
    At first sight the results of the third National Student Survey, published on September 12th, make more cheerful reading. That found that four-fifths of all English students considered their university experience satisfactory. But Graham Gibbs of Oxford University puts a gloomy spin on even this. What these students may be satisfied with, he says, "is an education that makes comparatively low demands on them". That is perhaps understandable: most undergraduates are not known for their work ethic. But it is short-sighted, both for them and their universities. After all, a currency can only trade for so long on its reputation.
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答案                             泡沫破裂
    政府似乎最终厌倦了对中等教育证书考试和A级考试正在沉沦的报道。9月26日，英国教育部长爱德-鲍尔斯在工党会议的发言中说到：他将组建一个新的监管机构以监管考试体制。现有的监管委员会分成了两组。其中一组继续开发新的教学大纲和标准并向部长汇报；另一组则不受政府管辖，直接对议会进行报告，该小组主要责任在于防范考试分数的“通货膨胀”。
    1997年，在戈登-布朗担任财政部长时，鲍尔斯先生助其一臂之力，迈出重要一步。10年后，他放弃了财政大权，转而对建立独立机构表现出极大兴趣。那被认为是他最美好的时光。那时身兼戈登-布朗的首席经济顾问的鲍尔斯先生正是促使他做出该决策的设计者之一。两人都希望新考试监管机构也能受到他人的赞扬。
    人们有充分理由相信英国中学的考试成绩大幅上升。政府希望选民相信他们的孩子接受的是良好教育，因此，分数自然也就很高。学校对此也做出相关反应，他们根据考试委员会颁布的大纲标准，到处选购最容易的教纲和试卷，并对学生的薄弱学科加以辅导。同时失去了大学信任和中学资助的考试委员会苟延残喘。试题命题人也知道试题过于粗制滥造可能会导致很多学校在将来的考核中纷纷下马。
    新的调整可能会保证，至少在学校里，差的考试机制不会将好的学生淘汰出局。但新的调整对大学并没有任何影响，因为大学里分数的“通货膨胀”仍然横行。现在3／5的学生可以得到二等分数。2002年到2006年间，获得第一等荣誉学位的比例则由9．7％上升到了11％。
    同样也有迹象表明，英国学位在国际市场上也遭受贬值。9月25日，智囊团高等教育政策研究院发布了有关15，000名英国大学生的研究结果。该结果显示：英国学生学习的时间远远少于欧洲任何国家的学生在学习方面所花的时间。每个英国学生平均每周花在学习上的时间只有26个小时，其中14个小时为上课时间，12个小时为自习时间。而相比之下，欧洲大学生平均每周有29小时学习时间，葡萄牙大学生是41小时。是不是英国学生将本该学习的时间都花在了寻找兼职工作上面呢?其实并非如此，其他国家的学生也在校外努力干起兼职工作。
    高等教育政策研究院院长巴赫拉姆-贝赫拉德尼警告说，对这个问题的解释并没有那么简单。他指出所有的上课时间并不代表学生学习时间。他指出：与一些欧洲大陆国家惯常的露天广场下的讲座相比，对小组学生量身定制的个别指导似乎能给学生传授更多的知识。
    他还表示研究的结果也不能不做考虑。外国学生如果认为英国大学学位的满意度低且所创造的价值偏低，那么他们就会选择去其他地方留学。而这对于那些资金匮乏的英国大学而言又是一场金融危机。在2004至2005年间，去年的数据仍适用，他们从留学生学费中获得17亿英镑的收入。
    乍看一眼9月12日发表的第三次全国学生调查研究便令人感到愉快。该研究发现4／5的英国学生对英国大学表示满意。但是，牛津大学的格雷厄姆-吉布却对此表示担忧。他说道：学生们可能感到满意的“是一种对他们要求更低的教育”。这可能容易理解：大部分大学生们的职业操守不再为人所知。但这种做法无论是对他们自己还是对学校来说都是目光短浅的。毕竟，学校的兴盛只有凭借其名誉才可以实现。
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