Education and Social Inequality

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Tara Rees

Education and Social Inequality

There are many current debates in education, ranging from the types of new schools that are being introduced like an increase in faith schools, to the changing the way schools are i.e. the new academy’s, also what is being taught in schools, like the policy on citizenship in schools where financial education will be taught. And the increase in independent schools where anyone can set up a new school as long as they have enough money behind them.

I am briefly going to look at two of these current debates. First I am going to talk about the new diplomas. These have been introduced into school as an alternative to GCSE’s and  A-Levels but what makes them different is that they combine practical work with academic work so that the person studying doesn’t just get the knowledge from learning in a classroom but also from doing it themselves. The diplomas are aimed at 14-19 year olds and there are 3 different levels that can be done and they take around 2 years on each level, the foundation diploma is equivalent to 5 GCSE’s grade D – G, the higher diploma is equivalent to 7 GCSE’s grade A*- C and the advanced diploma is equivalent to 3.5 A ‘levels. There has been big debates over this new scheme, many people believe that these new qualifications are worthless, in an article in the Mail online is says that two separate reports the new qualifications will do nothing for the career prospects for students in the future, that GCSE’s and A 'levels are seen as higher qualifications than the diploma’s even if they are the equivalent. To try and stop this from happening the government also included in the bill that schools and teachers will not be able to encourage brighter students to just take A 'levels but have to give them the option to choose. They have to give impartial advice, so that they are not promoting things that seek to promote things that do not have the pupil’s best interest at heart.

There has also been some debate over the school leaving age increase to 17 by 2013 and 18 by 2018. The government are said to have implemented this for many reasons, one of these is that in the most recent figures in England that 11% of 16 – 18 year old are not in education, work or training. There will be repercussions if they are caught not in school potentially up to a £50 on the spot fine and the potential of a criminal record. So this is not something to take lightly. There has been criticism for this that the government will only be moving the problem to the next age bracket that at 18 they will then be out of work even with their new qualifications, or if they do go on to university that they will then struggle to find work. They are looking towards countries like Canada who have compulsory education till a pupil is 18, they cannot get a driver’s licence without proof that they are in fulltime education if they are under 18. The Education Secretary Alan Johnson told the Times that it was "repellent that a youngster of 16 is not getting any training".” With the new diplomas and the age increase there is allot of changes for those in education today and these may or may not work but there has to be something done to ensure that people are coming out of education with the best possible start to go into the working world.

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There are many sociological concepts based around education and these are a few of them:-

Multiculturalism this is the concept that schools have adapted a multicultural way to teach so that there is nothing that wouldn’t be covered during teaching, now this has caused a current debate as if this was really the case would there be an increase in faith schools because those faiths feel that there are things that are not being covered as they should be, and if society was really multicultural would there be faith schools in the first place would there not just be schools ...

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