Quote: (10-14-2013 02:13 AM)svenski7 Wrote:
https://tinyurl.com/me27w6h
"On October 8th a scary report from the OECD, a think-tank, revealed that young English people are less numerate and less literate than most of their peers in the developed world. Worse still, England turned out to be one of the few countries in which the young are less capable than the old."
I've always thought of Britons as highly educated. It took me a few trips to Europe to realize they are no different than North Americans. We might have a stronger cowboy/redneck/rural southerner stereotype in the media but there is definitely a British counterpart. Free uni and condoms doesn't make you enlightened...
Universities are charging here now, £9k a year but you get a loan that covers it - so the average student ends up £27k in debt.
The system is not the outright debt slavery of the US model yet - you don't have to pay off against the loan if you don't meet an income threshold, and then you pay a percentage of your income above that amount, it expires after 50 years even if you haven't paid it all back etc. I just don't trust that they won't 'renegotiate' the terms once people are locked into the debt.
The students I see are from rich families and seem incredibly dim. Now everywhere charges as much as Oxford or Cambridge, why wouldn't the smartest flee from the rest and only aim for elite institutions?
"I'd hate myself if I had that kind of attitude, if I were that weak." - Arnold