schools ?

Do schools exist just for the benefit of businesses?
To ensure that there are enough educated workers
to fill the vacancies in factories, offices
and other places of employment?
Look at the way GCE marks were allocated in the past,
each year a percentage of passes were allocated to those taking each exam.
This meant that if most students were working very hard one year,
borderline cases would fail, conversely,
if most students were lazy or off form another year,
borderline cases would pass.
So all that industry wanted was enough passes to fill their vacancies.
How many lives in the past may have been ruined
(or even just affected to an adverse degree)
by this callous indifference to
what passing an exam can mean to individuals?
So, it seems that schools, colleges and universities
are not there for our education
but just to supply the needs of the privileged.
Why else would past governments have allowed thousands of youngsters
to leave school without being able to read, write or do simple arithmetic?
They had enough, why bother?

October 1997