Our young people need a wider range of skills

Spare a thought today for all the young people awaiting their A-level and GCSE results this month.

The UK’s post-Brexit success depends on them. Not on the grades they get, but on the kind of people they are.

They will be the ones who take and create the jobs of the future. Jobs that will require a breadth of skills and not necessarily a narrow band of academic study.

Young people should be able to choose from a broad range of subjects post-16, including technical and vocational. But there are more restrictions on the subjects offered than ever before.

Sixth-form funding has fallen sharply since 2010 whilst government expectation that students follow a more academic core of subjects has risen. Schools and colleges are finding it harder than ever to prepare young people for the future.

And with Brexit looming, the Government needs to address this urgently.

Paul Whiteman

General Secretary NAHT

Focus on exams hurts children

The ever-impressive Chief Inspector of Schools in England, Amanda Spielman, is on a crusade to outlaw exam factory schools that narrowly “teach to the test” and are guilty of “gaming the system”, that do not offer a wider, richer education including art, music, sport and drama.

She believes that children are being betrayed by such schools. She claims the current focus on exams puts the interest of schools ahead of the interests of the children.

Ms Spielman has been alarmed by secondary schools that set GCSE targets for pupils at the age of 11, along with those schools that start teaching GCSE courses three years before the exams.

This means sacrificing wider learning.

She also criticised the relentless drive on tracking pupils which adds to the teacher’s workload, adversely affecting their teaching performance.

This is driving teachers out of the profession – along with lessons that are all about exams, where teaching the mark schemes has a bigger place than teaching the subject.

Because schools are judged on GSCE grades, some are encouraging their pupils to retake exams continually throughout their last two and sometimes three years, where actual education and learning has been virtually suspended in pursuit of the best “outcomes” for the school.

The head of Ofsted said that we should be ashamed for letting such practices persist for so long, and there are plans in England to downgrade exam results as a measure of school quality as she moves to stamp out the culture of cramming children for tests.

Are you paying attention at the back, Kirsty William, Estyn and the Welsh Government?

Dennis Coughlin

Llandaff

Fare rises benefit just shareholders

most train operating companies are private companies, as are the leasing companies which own most of the rolling stock...

Is it the case, then, that the Tory (Westminster) Government is merely boosting shareholders’ dividends by these savage, annual fare rises?

And if, as is the case, a percentage of fare income leaves the rail industry to boost shareholders’ dividends, is this not a strong case for a government-owned, arm’s-length, British Rail/Welsh Rail ... which would keep 100% of the income within the industry (for investment)?

John D Rogers

President, Railfuture Cymru, Nantymoel

Welsh roots to boost US tourism

How can Wales increase tourism from the USA?

Well, I would research famous American with Welsh roots. Like John Adams (1735–1826), President of the United States, Vice President of the United States, who traced his ancestry to Pembroke, Pembrokeshire and to Penybanc Farm at Llanboidy, Carmarthenshire.

Or John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), President of the United States, Secretary of State, or James Garfield (1831–81), 20th President of the United States.

Even names like Frank and Jesse James, who had Welsh roots.

With the heading: “Visit Wales, the Land of your Forefathers”.

Andrew Nutt

Bargoed

Value of degrees is cheapened

David Jones, CEO Coleg Cambria, has raised concerns about unconditional offers being made by Welsh universities, but the real underlying problem is that there is no currency in university degrees. Cheap degrees are being offered.

Learning is a process of cognitive growth, thousands of hours are required to develop subject fluency. If learners are not prepared to go to university, then this will mean their final outcomes must be retarded, however hard they work, because they will be building on shallow foundations.

In the practising professions like pharmacy, law and teaching, there is no need for practitioners to obtain fixed outcome standards to offer equitable practising standards. They are working hard to obtain initial degrees, while others obtain initial and higher degrees in media studies, languages they fluently speak and even circus studies.

Pharmacists have five years of intense training, but they tend only to have higher degrees. Research has found many people view them as glorified shopkeepers. Teachers are viewed with contempt because they do not have PhDs.

There is no incentive for children to work hard to obtain the challenging, or any, degrees.

Howard Gunn

Tonteg, Pontypridd

Corbyn’s weakness on Palestine issue

Jeremy Corbyn has said he is now willing to accept the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, despite his party’s governing body removing reference to criticism of Israel as being anti-Semitic.

This shows him to be a weak leader in my view, as he should stand by his record as a backbench MP trying to broker peace in the Middle East, even if that meant justifying sharing platforms with those holding intolerable views.

Israel is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who breaks international law on a daily basis by building illegal settlements on land designated for Palestinians and each month innocent Palestinians are killed by his Israeli Defence Force.

However well-intentioned the IHRA definition was, it did not foresee a time when Palestinians have their human rights breached daily with no recourse.

Because of the IHRA definition, Benjamin Netanyahu felt justified in calling former US Secretary of State John Kerry anti-Semitic – his ethnicity is Jewish!

The debate over whether Jewish people have a right to a home in the Holy Land is religious and political and it should not be considered racist to believe if Jewish people leave the Holy Land for greener pastures, they should not have an automatic right to go back if others have settled there.

Cllr Jonathan Bishop

Efail Isaf, Pontypridd