Grade Inflation has Made GCSE's, Most State Education Certificates Worthless to Employers

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Governments don't just like to print money and debt with inflationary consequences but virtually every aspect of government action via the bloated socialist public sector is to inflate towards infinity that ultimately diminishes value towards zero be it pieces of paper called currency or pieces of paper called GCSE certificates.

Grade Inflation has seen the value of GCSE's continuously diminish in value year in year out as government funded institutions from schools, to local authorities to examiners have sought to inflate pass rates to give the illusion of improvement to the point where to most employers GCSE's are rated as near worthless.

However this year, the educational establishment went too far in January by inflating pass marks to an unprecedented extent which prompted the department of education to instruct examiners to make corrections to bring the grade inflation rate back down to a more easily believable inflation rate else the illusion of value of these pieces of paper (GCSE certificates) risks being permanently shattered.

The response of the educational establishment instead of realising that the grade inflation fraud cat could be let out of the bag, so should have quietly accepted the amendments, instead have shown highly public outrage as plastered right across the media on a near daily basis for several weeks now, with socialist trade unionists leading the charge of the GCSE light brigade, whilst prospective employers have watched on and taken note to fully appreciate how our education system works with grade inflation at its core that over time has made the value of GCSE's and other paper certificates near worthless i.e. in 1980 40% of students passed with a grade C or higher, today it is 70%, therefore GCSE's have lost nearly HALF their value over the past 30 years and the rate of grade inflation is increasing EXPOENENTIALLY, which implies that by 2020, 99% of students will pass GCSE's with the result that 99% of employers will rate them as worthless pieces of scrap paper.

What the education establishment and parents need to realise is that employers today rate GCSE's by the year they were taken. The older the vintage the more valuable the GCSE certificate, the more recent the certificate the less valuable the certificate.

All aspects of public sector from Education to the civil service to the NHS are dysfunctional to such an extent that they are reliant on doctored statistics to allow them to continue to rip off tax payers to the tune of hundreds of billions a year which is the primary reason the government prints debt to the tune of £130 billion a year to cover the budget deficit that results in the Inflation Mega-trend that acts to steal the wealth from workers, savers and investors over time as illustrated by the Inflation Mega-trend graph below that shows that despite the British economy having been in economic depression for the past 4 years, yet it has still suffered inflation of 15%.

The inflation mega-trend virtually guarantees that value of wealth such as savings will effectively be stolen by governments towards the purpose for the buying of votes to win elections. This demands action be taken to protect oneself from this theft of purchasing power, strategies that I have covered at length over the years and in-depth in the Inflation Mega-trend ebook (FREE DOWNLOAD)

There is only one solution towards the uncompetitive public sector which is real market competition for services, that is the only thing that will drive improvement in education, improvement in health services, not governments printing debt to buy votes by funding black holes such as state schools and the NHS all the way towards national bankruptcy.

Where education is concerned, the department for education needs to go back to the drawing board and re-draw the education system in line with what is demanded by employers, rather than the current system that churns out worthless GCSE's, then worthless A levels and finally has graduates leaving University with degrees that most employers rate as near worthless as most of these students in reality should never have gone to university but instead have done vocational training. Nothing is achieved by making everyone pass exams through grade inflation.

The grade inflation fraud has prompted industries to create their OWN training and certification tracks such as CISCO, Microsoft , ACCA, CIMA, and virtually every other major industry because what the state education churns out truly is near worthless where most employers are concerned. The current UK education system is highly damaging to the country but no politician or political party is willing to say what needs to be done to correct it which is to put the pass rate back at 40% for Grade C and above, because the outrage from vested interests will be several irders of magnitude greater than the 0.8% drop from the January rates that we are witnessing.

Parents and Students need to realise that grade inflation is a fraud that that they are the victims of, because it allows teachers and schools to get away with substandard teaching that is masked by grade inflation that gives the illusion of having attained an educational standard that the students in reality have not, so someone in reality who has an real educational standard of grade E but graded as C is never given that extra real help that they need to actually succeed in working life. The end result is an educational system from schools, to colleges to universities that is geared more towards marketing certificates to parents and students rather than actually educating to employment standards.

Your analyst with 1983 to 1987 vintage certificates, worth about twice today's certificates.

Source and comments - http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article36472.html

By Nadeem Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

Copyright © 2005-2012 Marketoracle.co.uk (Market Oracle Ltd). All rights reserved.

Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of three ebook's - The Inflation Mega-Trend; The Interest Rate Mega-Trend and The Stocks Stealth Bull Market Update 2011 that can be downloaded for Free.

Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication that presents in-depth analysis from over 600 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets, thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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