‘Leaving the brightest bored and unchallenged’ –Article in the Observer newspaper, 29.06.08. This quotation from an article proves that selective education on the students’ academic capability is a good. If a student goes to a school that is under their academic capability, which would mean the lessons cater more for the less advanced students in the class, this would leave the student not unable to reach their full potential due to not being in a class with students of a similar ability.
Although, selective education on academic ability also has its cons such as in some cases a student may not be showing it’s full academic ability at the age of a 11, when the induction test is, which would leave them not reaching their full ability later in school life when they are a head of the rest of their class mates and aren’t being challenged by the work. Also, as most private schools use selective education the student may be able to pass the induction test but may not be able to afford the tuition fees which would affect them greatly later on in life when they aren’t given the best possible opportunities due to such a variable factor. This is why there is a stereotypes that students from better areas are more academically advanced than people from worse areas as the ones from better areas attend to private schooling, all this proves is that people from better areas can afford the fees of private schooling, this stereotype is untrue as students from less well-off families may be academically advanced enough to attend private schools but they do not have the funding.
Although, I do not believe in selective education on some grounds such as… I do not believe that someone should be denied an opportunity in schooling to give them the best chance due to their race or sex. This shows nothing about the students’ academic capability.
Also I strongly agree that someone shouldn’t be judged on their geographical origin, as there is a huge stereotype that if you are from a nice area you WILL do better in school. Although, in some if not most cases this isn’t true as if someone is from a ‘bad’ area they may have more work ethic to do better in life to improve their quality of living. Where as someone who lives in a ‘nice’ area and already has a comfy lifestyle they may take this for granted leaving them to have a worse work ethic due to thinking that things such as this comes easily. This is why I believe that people shouldn’t be judged on their area as it doesn’t reflect on their academic ability in the slightest and it is a factor that the student isn’t responsible for as it is due to the factors of the parents/careers success in life and job status. Which is why I believe that the ‘FFTD’ targets are inaccurate as someone with a lower academic ability could have a higher target grade than someone who is academically smarter but lives in a ‘bad’ area due to living in a ‘nice’ area.
In conclusion, due to the points I have mentioned above I believe in selective education in some parts. I believe that it is fair that students should be taught differently at different rates more specific to their academic ability as this would be less pressure to the student and would also bring out the best grades possible in the student for their ability. Although, I do not believe that people should be judged upon factors such as race, sex and geographic origin as these are factors that the student cannot prevent and they are also variable and have no connect what so ever on the students’ academic ability. I don’t believe that someone shouldn’t get the best chances and opportunities in life that they are academically entitled to due to a factor that is not reflection on the student’s ability which is also unpreventable.
