 |
 |
Much the same request has been put to me by QCA and they of course will get the same response. I too am worried and have been for some time about what I see as declining standards in Business Studies in general and in one Board (in my opinion) in particular. That is why I continue to make such a fuss about it and as everyone knows, the best way to expose a weak system or standard is to continually abuse it, hence various publicity about the success of my students.
I am first and foremost an Economics teacher surprisingly and Economics as a subject seems to be suffering in terms of student numbers, perhaps because given the choice of Business Studies or Economics and also given the assessment of schools on pass rates alone, students are being steered towards Business Studies for the reason, apparent or otherwise, that Business Studies is perceived in the words of one of the correspondents to this forum as "diluted Economics". I also note with sadness that perhaps the "meatiest" paper/Board, Oxford and Cambridge (Applied Economics Paper) is seriously in decline.
This week I am in the middle of running an Easter course in Economics
and a number of students are from one particular school where they sit
AEB Economics. (Normally I teach London). I gave the class
the 1994 multiple choice paper as a mock and no-one scored above 44%.
As that same class included some students who had scored over 80% in their
school mock, I asked them why this performance was so bad. As one
voice, they said that the multiple choice format had changed since 1994
and in their words it was now much easier. I am wondering whether
I should focus my attention on Economics and standards as well as Business
Studies?
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%