Education system in your country

http://www.schome.ac.uk/wiki/Education_systems_by_country

Well, I found this page that was somewhat helpful but it doesn't explain what do the students actually learn at a particular age. I mean the what diffenrent subjects they learn, the syllabus etc. I've always heard from people who have went abroad to some western countries that the education system there is simple compared to countires like India, Japan etc.

If you have a few minutes then would some of you care to write a few things about the education system in your country? Like what subjects do you have and maybe list a few concepts that you learn in those subjects. You don't need to write everything, so just write something about what is the stuff you learn when you are 17-18 years old. (grade XI-XII).

Note: I am just curious, nothing more. I passed my school exams a few days ago(grade XII) and will be going to college in October. The last few months (Dec 2010- April 2011) have been horrible to me, giving tests after tests every month, waking up late at night 3-4AM just mugging up stuff. It seems that the pressure from the school authorities, parents, relatives is really high here when compared to western countires, I just want to verify it.

In England, grade XI (GCSE "year 11") is mandatory, but you finish it at 16 years old and can leave school. Grades XI and below are 1 to 2 years behind North American schools in terms of content, but that is because GCSE's have been decreasing from what they once were (OLevels).

Then you can do what are called "A-Levels" for grades XII and XII. For students who take them, these make up the short-fall in GCSE's if you take STEM subjects (Science, Technology, English, Mathematics). They cover the "missing" 2 years content, and then things that may be taught in the first year of university in North America. I've only looked at Canada, but a B or above in a Physics A-Level is equivalent to 1 university credit in Physics. This is usually the case for each STEM A-Level, but some are worth a lower value of 0.5 credits in their subject.

I haven't been to university yet (still finishing A-Level exams), but I've noticed that it's more the university you go to, rather than the course you take, that affects what you learn. If you go to Oxford, you get one of the best educations in the world. If you go to some other places, you don't.

Most of my teachers often tell me that the education system here is much easier than it used to be, and that what we do at A-Levels used to be done in OLevels (old GCSE), and their A-Levels had the same content taught in universities today. I wouldn't believe it if it wasn't for news showing 8 year olds getting A's in the papers I'm taking this summer

As for the pressure of doing the subjects, I found GCSE's came to me fairly easy and I didn't have to work hard to get good grades, but others do not have the same ease.

A-Levels are varied. Some people do IB's which mean they need to take 6 or so subjects for A-Level, while others only need to do 2 to 4 A-Levels. It also depends on subject, as science (physics, biology, or chemistry) and mathematics are regarded as the most difficult subjects to take. I think that every A-Level student will feel more pressure than when they did GCSE's however.

Wow, the difference really seems big. According to the system you described, I just passed my A-levels and will be going to uni in a few months.

In India we don't have the credits system and instead of grades we get marks/points(exams of 40,70, 100 marks). Academics here focuses more on theory rather than practicals. We don't have many projects or presentations( I don't have a problem with this since I have severe social anxiety disorder and prefer not to be the centre of attention ) but thoery exams are more important.

And also schooling system here seems to be rather simple than what you described. Grades 1-5 are called Primary, 6-10 are called secondary, 11 and 12 are reffered as senior secondary. After we pass Grade 10, we allowed to choose different subjects based on our score in grade 10. There's Science, Commerce and Arts streams. Science stream is further divided into PCMC(Phy, Chem, Maths, Computers) and PCMB(Phy, Chem, Maths, Biology). I opted for PCMC.

The commerce and arts are considered for less "intelligent" students, not by the students though it's mostly a belief of parents and teachers(yes).

The increase in difficulty and change in subject matter is substantial in Grade XI for science students, many who used to score 90+ in grade X have now difficulty in passing, this sadly leads to suicides of many students due to very high expectations from the parents.

For the next 2 years we learn the subjects we chose and the mandatory English subject. The scores we get in grade XII is stamped on everything we do next. I plan to do B.E in Computer Science.

I hope I am not bothering you, but would you consider listing some of the stuff you learn in subjects like Phy, Chem, Maths in grade XI-XII, just want to check that what we learn here is similar or not.

Thanks for taking your time to write this.

In Quebec we have what we call CEGEP (College), which is usually mandatory before University.

After the eleventh year at school (5th Secondary year in High School), most people go to College in prevision of going at University. But maybe half of them stop after College with a technical training in a specific field, computer science, mechanical design, etc.. Most advanced studies in College like biology, chemistry or mathematics won't be that useful if you don't plan to go to University.

Currently, Quebec high schools have a drop out rate of near 40% for boys. Which is pretty high. Those boys will later try to do private studies in car mechanics or welding which usually don't require you to have completed high school.

I don't know much about Exams and things like that since I didn't go to University but I know that we use a credits system in both College and University.

I plan to go back to University to get a Bachelor in computer science (90 credits) or just a certificate (30 credits), since I'm 26 and haven't been in school in the past 5 years. I can be admitted as an Adult candidate and only pass math and french test before starting the official program.

I find that pretty nice when you want to see how the real world works before choosing a career.

Sure, I don't take Chemistry so I can't describe that, but I take the other two subjects.

In the first year we learn some stuff like this:

-Nuclear particles, waves and wave-particle duality, materials, and moving bodies (momentum, acceleration, etc) for Physics

-Integration, differentiation, binomial expansions, graphs, trignometric functions, line equations, logarithms for Mathematics

-2D vectors, acceleration, friction of slopes, and moments for Mechanics (an optional part of Mathematics, other options that can be taken instead are Statistics and Decision Mathematics, again I don't know anything about them)

In the second year we then learn some more:

-Magnetic and gravitational fields, nuclear reactions, and rotational mechanics (optional, can be replaced with astronomical or medical physics) for Physics

-Further integration and differentiation (eg: of trig. functions), 3D vectors, further binomial expansion (eg: expansions to a negative power), and partial fractions for Mathematics

-Centres of mass for uniform solid or wireframe 2d shapes, and work energy & power for moving bodies in Mechanics

Although we learn similar things in Mechanics and Physics at times, the questions are very different, with Physics aiming towards understanding and using numerical values. Mechanics on the other hand, is focussed on the mathematical modelling and can instead ask questions like "A ball of mass M is projected with velocity U vertically upwards under a downwards gravitational acceleration of G, show that the maximum height reached by the ball (H) is equal to (U^2)/(2G)" or "Explain a method of improving the realism in the mathematical model"

Id like to know all that stuff But I dont so I keep thinking the ball I throw falls because of all the little people in it failing to fly it properly.. Naaahh just kidding, naaah im serious.

Jayjay:

Yup, it's pretty much the same thing here except that we also have chemistry as a mandatory subject. Don't know where this notion of 'education is easier in the west' came from, I guess it's the effect of all those stupid teenage sitcoms shown on TV.

Djordhan:

Thanks for the info both of you