(08 Apr 2016, 1:50 pm)James101 wrote http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35968423
YES
Our education system is set up to push young people into further and higher education and damn them if they'd like to do anything else.
The people in charge of education live in an isolated bubble world where they themselves have obediently travelled through the education system right through university and have then landed a job in education to start the whole cycle again. What's missing is any real experience. It's then compounded by teachers getting so wrapped up in meeting targets and getting pupils through tests with such narrowly defined curriculum that the end result is not a well rounded individual coming out of school but a trained dolphin who can jump through a hoop and tell you some very specific facts about a book they studied for two years or some alien maths formula which has no application in the real world.
[snip]
Teaching is a wonderful vocation and very few of us are brave enough to take it on. Most teachers are wonderful people and inspire children every day. It's the people in charge of the education system who are guiding teachers and their pupils in the wrong way.
Sadly they get no say in this. Any deviation from the expectation and they are performance managed back into compliance. Or out of the profession.
It does appear that many schools have been turned into sausage factories which do not serve the needs of many young people at all well. Compulsory academisation is, unfortunately, going to be the git big hammer whacking the final nail into that coffin.
While it comes with its own headaches, it is a slight relief for them that my boys are completely side-stepping mainstream secondary school.