Top universities struggle to teach “spoonfed” school leavers that do not have basic maths and science skills despite getting A grades at A-level, lt reopened the debate about standards alnong A-level students after Imperial College London announced last week. It plans to introduce its own entrance exam David Robb, a lecturer at lmperial, told reporters yesterday that admissions tutors struggle to pick out the best students because so many achieve top grades despite having weak knowledge of maths and science.
A new A** grade may soon be needed to sort the very best A-level students from the rest, he suggested. The government already has plans to introduce an A* grade in September.
Robb told the MPs (英国下院) that maths and science education in schools was not good enough. “Engineers have got to get things right, You can’t say, ‘this looks about right’. There are people’s lives to be jeopardized, If you get wrong, engineers carl kill,”he said.
Robb said, “Over the last 10 to 15 years, the standard of A-levels has dropped. It has failed as a way of ranking students, We’re taking in too many students with A grades but not the basic skills to deal with university courses. He added that there are not enough qualified science teachers in schools to arouse pupils’ interest, Nick Dusci, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said. “We hear from universities that it ‘s a problem and they have to put more effort in it at the beginning to get students to meet the requirements.” He agreed unqualified teachers were partly to blame, “lt’s a problem of improving the curriculum (课程) and improving the supply of trained science and maths teachers. That goes hand in hand with improving the quality of education.”