We need to address the apparent degree of reform required to adjust the system of education in the United Kingdom in order to benefit the educational welfare of our school and university students today. As the recent Coronavirus outbreak has introduced new ways of life into our country it is apt for the education system to follow suit in order to fully support the struggling students who still currently facing a fog of confusion and misleadingness that has been brought about by the government in attempt to “rectify” the GCSE and A Level processes among others.

 

It is beyond doubt that the pandemic has revealed technology as being the key driver for a successful education in the future: working from home has proven to be a success, both for schools and in business with a virtual meeting only being a click of the mouse away, however, that technology needs to be available to everyone, not just the privileged few. 

 

Children from less well-off families should have access to cheap or even free hard and software in order for them not to fall behind in their learning. The motto “children are our future” could not be more of an influence to our government, accentuating how the school students of today should be equipped with sufficient knowledge relevant to their chosen subjects or degree and provide them with the correct modern technology in order to achieve said knowledge. How is a future medic expected to pass their A Level Biology examination with flying colours, if they have not been taught the difference between mitosis and meiosis at GCSE? It simply is not fair. The children will one day be in charge of the world, therefore the government must take action by setting up the relevant schemes to supply hard and software to less fortunate students at a minuscule or non-existent price.

 

The necessary modification of the United Kingdom’s education system entails how the one big exam at the end of the school year – whether it be GCSEs or A Levels – must become a matter of the past. Imagine revising sedulously during school only to fall ill on the morning of your public examination and receive a poor grade as consequence; it is hardly fair. Going forward, we should embrace the concept of constant learning, which will be underlined by short and frequent assessments after finishing a topic. 

 

One big long exam at the end of the school year puts unnecessary stress and anxiety on the students. The average attention span of a 16 year old is between 48 and 80 minutes (which they undeniably cannot control), so why are we measuring their intelligence with lengthy, tedious exam papers? The last two years have shown that being examined “little and often” is a much more effective gauge of assessing students’ progress. 

 

We can apply this situation to the morals blatantly displayed in ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’: as teachers “slowly and steadily” collate evidence towards a particular grade for each student throughout the years each pupil will “win the race” by receiving the grade they fully deserve. Student Hannah Masood from City of London Freemen’s School agrees with this approach and states how “the final exam is just a snapshot of what a pupil is capable of and it is unfair that if they have a bad day that that is what they are being represented by.”

 

We should all take interest in viewing how our Department for Education intends to help the school and university students of the United Kingdom by amending the education system that has been crumbling since the first emergence of COVID-19 – it is not fair.