Is it only in South Africa that state schools are failing......

Would you like to elaborate granb ?

It has been in the news over the last couple of days that a court in South Africa has ruled that the lack of text books is a breach of the constitution.

It just crossed my mind that we seem to have accepted the position here and have allowed the lack of funding to be an acceptable reason.

When you say 'this country' and 'here' are you talking about the UK, granb?

And if you are, better keep it quiet, because if the ECHR hears about it....

What is the ECHR?
I can remember a head of department getting fed up with children not having textbooks and deciding that we should just photocopy and hand out a page as we did it-it was impossible

Do you mean EHRC? Equality and Human Rights Commission?

Our GDP is about 6 times that of South Africa and their population is nearly as big as ours. We spend the same % of our GDP on education as RSA. So according to my quick calculation, rounding the figures, we are spending about 5 times as much actual money on education as they do.
Ask anyone who has worked in schools for 15 years and they will tell you that there are still lavish amounts of money given to them, compared to what they had under Thatcher and Major. Although budgets are about to decline.

I meant the European Court of Human Rights

Has no one else ever heard of it?

Of course, same initials but different order!

We don't seem to be getting value for money, then, Jess!

I reckon my daughter is getting value for money at her very Scottish primary school. I also reckon she'll get value for money at the high school she starts at in August as I have only heard good reports about it. I reckon I and my siblings got good value for money from the schools and universities we attended (they had their strengths and weaknesses, but doesn't everything?). I reckon my parents got good value for money out of the state system schools and universities they attended. My nephews and nieces seem to have got good value for money out of their schools and universities.

Somehow I find it hard to believe that my extended family is unusual in this.

delete very in first line.

Same goes for my GC's primary school - OFSTED, 'outstanding' . And the nearby High School where my DiL teaches has a almost as good an OFSTED report. I know my state education was excellent both at school and at University and my DC were pretty well served too. I was very happy with both the schools of which I was a governor. And I'm not the complacent type.

Well, it depends what you class as value for money. The standard of education in general is lower now than it was in the days of Thatcher and Major.

Any hard evidence for that statement, Anagram?
I am not sure how far the number of text books is a relevant measure any more. I would think digital whiteboards and/or the internet resources would replace most of the sets of books of former years. If you can see a text on the digital whiteboard why would you all need a copy of the book?

Yes. Hard evidence, please. Otherwise: pish!

You may 'pish' all you want, but few employers would disagree with the premise that many school leavers and university graduates are joining firms with a lack of basic writing skills and a very scant knowledge of key principles of grammar, punctuation and spelling.

anagram if you ask people to tell you problems, they will. There used to be a huge number of jobs in the economy that did not require literacy and numeracy skills. A vast number of these have disappeared. So the jobs have changed a lot - and hence the requirements.
My sons went to school in the Thatcher years and I taught during them too.
I'll grant you that the qualifications are not so "academic" in style - but there are many more children leaving school with qualifications than there were then. And the standards of teaching expected of the teaching staff are way higher.
"my" school has been improving year on year in terms of numbers leaving with English and Maths and that trend will hopefully continue.

My GD applied for a job,was given an interview along with over 100 applicants and when she was told that she had been given the job,they also said that it was because of her 'very readable' writing. She has just been given a promotion.Obviously this employer valued 'basic writing skills'etc. I also think that textbooks have been superceded by the digital whiteboards and the internet,Mamie.

Anagram I cannot agree. I think standards are very similar. Employers in the 1800's were complaining in the same way current business leaders do. It's traditional to for the older generation to slate the next..makes them still feel useful and superior !
What young people leave school with now needs to be a very different set of skills than when I left in 1969. Of course there are some core skills that are needed that are the same but workplaces /jobs are different now and we need to be educating for the future not the present.
More school leavers go to HE so those in the work force at 18 may be different to the ones seeking school leaver work in the past.
I am tire of the continual 'knocking' of education, students and the teaching profession as though captains of industry where somehow the people with all the truth!

The standards ofsted use to judge teaching are cranked up every 3 years or so. The teaching that was done in the schools I taught in during the 70s (including my own) would be now judged universally unsatisfactory - nowhere near borderline. Much of the teaching I received myself in grammar school, likewise. I remember a history teacher for instance - literally all he used to do was dictate notes. We went away and swotted up the content of the notes and passed our o levels. Bright children with parental support tend to achieve under any regime, however useless the teaching.
Yes those o levels were academic - but only a few people passed them. Most did not even sit them.

*jessM8..I agree. My history teacher did the same... we opened our text books.. she wrote a summary of the chapter on the board ... we copied it down and were told to 'learn' it for the exam. She was an Oxford graduate..she probably knew her history but no way could she teach it! Likewise my maths teacher .. had a masters in maths but had no idea how to teach it to anyone (me) who was not a natural mathematician. She used to shout at me and call me a cabbage Never questioned it when overnight I got homework 100% right after usually getting 50% at most. I had tracked down the answer book at Foyle's second hand bookshop! I failed my GCE Maths mock exam. I moved to a lower set and was taught by a good teacher and learned more maths in one term than I had in the previous three years!

I had the same history teacher as you two! Thankfully, I had exceptionally good teachers for maths, geography, biology and English (guess what my favourite subjects were!). French teacher appalling for four years then had a change (put down from the top set) and learned more in two terms than I had learned in the entire previous four years so got top grade O level. All this in a grammar school too. Only managed Latin because my mum was able to teach me over the summer hols what the teacher only confused me with the rest of the time. And so on.

Absolute bitch of a PE teacher. Really nasty if you weren't one of the favoured.

Most of these 'teachers' had no training – just came straight from uni with a degree. They often ended up teaching a different subject. Not that that mattered if they were 'natural' teachers, but few are.

Things have definitely improved.

And schools are better equipped.

bags similar experiences amongst this small group of GNers makes me think that the 'good old days' were not as good as we sometimes make them out to be! I failed 11+ so no grammar school for me but two top streams did Latin at my Sec Mod. Jane Packer was our PE teacher . She had extended leave to train and win an Olympic medal!