Our Society places too much emphasis on achievement and not enough on learning

So that time of year again has come and gone. The time of year where we hear there are record numbers of people excelling in their GCSEs and A-levels. Where some extraordinary 5 year old with obviously pushy and deluded parents passes a Maths GCSE. Where workaholic individuals who spent their whole school life locked up in their bedroom slaving away at their homework achieve 6 or more A*s at A-level in a bid to prove just how bloody brilliant they are, whilst they fail to realize that they lack the sufficient social skills, common sense and experience that will actually get them somewhere in life.

And whilst I do come from an advanced educational background, I do find it absolutely ludicrous how we place so much value on a couple of slips of paper with our name and some grades on that apparently prove our worth to people and employers. My achievements in life summed up by a few letters of the alphabet and a ratio (2:1). Great.

Why don’t we teach students instead of training them to jump through hoops in exams. It seems as though schools just want to achieve higher amounts of A grades so they can get that magical lump of money that allows them to purchase new desks and projectors that aren’t covered in obscene graffiti about how shit their supposed great achieving school is.

Children and adolescents are no longer learning any useful in life. Most of these individuals finish school having no idea of how to manage their finances, write a CV, apply for job and generally not be a cunt in a professional setting. No wonder we have a growing underclass that we love to point and laugh and label as chavs, whilst we slowly come to realize that a good proportion of the population of Britain will soon be made up of these job seeker’s allowance claiming scumbags.

There are too many clueless people around whilst the government sits on its fat Tory arse (with a slight hint of Lib Dem) and pats itself on the back for the record number of high grades, whilst they fail to do anything about the thousands of students who can’t get into university or attain a job despite their grades. What good is a qualification if it gets you nowhere?

How many of you have worked diligently at your exams only to come out of the hall afterwards and realize that the information you have spent the past month or so cramming into your overloaded brain has been instantly forgotten?

Exams are a poor, poor way of assessing people. They are tests of memory where those can remember bits of information the best are the ones that succeed. Not a real test of your abilities.

We should stop deluding ourselves into thinking our system is still the best in the world and realize that without reform, we will continue to have these problems.