How the British are implementing the Soviet education system

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Not a day goes by in the Parliament of Great Britain, and in society as a whole, without a discussion of the state of affairs in the educational system of the country, which for centuries was considered the best, and today it is seriously failing. After all, it is no longer a secret that in England there are children and young people who can neither write nor count, do not know elementary literacy and arithmetic.

The Economist describes an unusual situation for London mainstream schools and tries to understand: how did a simple public school from a poor London area become one of the most successful educational institutions in the UK?

The Economist writes: To learn more about the impact of the Soviet Union on English education, visit the Preparatory College in London's Lambeth borough, a 20-minute walk from Parliament. There, in a former public bathhouse, lost among residential high-rise buildings, is the King's College London Mathematics School (KCLMS). Come in and you will see how the students have fun solving math problems on whiteboards, and on the tables are chessboards with lined pieces. The atmosphere of the school is more of a "thrifty option" of a college in Oxford or Cambridge than of a public school in a dormitory area of London.

This educational institution was created according to the model of the Moscow school. A. N. Kolmogorova, which since the mid-60s of the last century has been accepting capable students at the age of 15 and providing them with the best mathematical education in the country. Michael Gove, Britain's Minister of Education from 2010 to 2014, "imported" the Soviet model onto British soil and opened specialized mathematics colleges at universities. Gove then, as Minister, set a goal: to enable all children, regardless of their level of material wealth (and we know how expensive private schools are in London), to acquire knowledge in mathematics and physics "at the Eaton level." That is, in fact, Michael Gove was calculating the Soviet system, in which talented children had access to study in specialized mathematics schools without paying a dime for it.

However, according to the article, only two universities responded and opened such colleges. KCLMS and the Exeter Mathematics School, founded by Exeter University in 2014. And on January 23 this year, the British government announced the need to increase the number of such educational institutions. This was a logical step as the Cabinet of Ministers adopted an "industrial strategy" program that plans to open new mathematics schools across the country. Rumor has it that a number of universities have already revised their initial reluctance to participate in this project.

The Economist admits that for the UK, how to teach capable children is a sensitive topic. Recently, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that she was considering lifting the ban on opening new grammar schools that select students based on their academic performance at age 11. While some actively support the idea of grammar schools, others are vehemently opposed. Even the current Minister of Education, Justine Greening, is said to be privately skeptical about plans to return such schools.

The article, however, notes that this school of mathematics at King's College London (KCLMS) is extremely selective in the selection of children. An applicant for study in it must have the highest score ("A *") in mathematics in the GCSE exams, which are taken by schoolchildren at the age of 16. Still, the Economist says, for all that, these colleges may be less “socially divisive” than the same grammar schools that incumbent Prime Minister Theresa May cares about.

The Economist's argument is that, first, screening for the best performing students at age 16 is already ubiquitous and considered more reliable than testing 11-year-olds. And secondly, and very importantly, KCLMS is better at recruiting students from low-income families than most grammar schools. In the recruitment process, preference is given to children from low-profile schools in poor areas and from poor families, where parents, as a rule, do not have a higher education and cannot even pay for their children's meals. But 14% of KCLMS students are entitled to free meals at school, that is, they are officially classified as poor. At the same time, in grammar schools, only less than 3% of children from poor families get the opportunity to receive free food.

Educational specialists in England are also sounding the alarm because the fate of children who fail in the entrance exam to grammar school is very difficult. These children learn even worse in the future, in part because they have allegedly “tarnished their reputation” and receive the stamp of “losers” and “dysfunctional”. At the same time, if a student fails the preparatory college entrance exam, it hardly leaves a "social stigma" on him. In this regard, there is an opinion that institutions like KCLMS will allow "to raise" and support the most gifted children, and at the same time, not to destroy, not crush those who failed to pass the exam.

Statistics show the effectiveness of this "Soviet" school model. The guys who got the opportunity to study at this school achieve great success: out of 61 students of the graduating class of KCLMS, 14 have already received an invitation to Oxford or Cambridge. In 2016, all students received the highest grade "A *" or the next "A" in the A-level exam, which is taken at the age of 18. Students' scores are on average 0.7 points higher in each subject than peers with similar GCSE scores.

School Principal Dan Abramson attributes these findings to the need for teachers to have a deep knowledge of their subject - after all, lessons can go far beyond the school curriculum. A small group of teachers spends long hours processing large amounts of information and attending many lessons in order to understand how to improve the learning process. The program is being developed in collaboration with scientists from King's College London so that students can prepare for admission to the university. Graduate students act as mentors for first-year students. Extracurricular activities for the brightest are taught by one of the Honorary Professors of Mathematics at Queen's University London.

The Economist writes that the success of a school is also determined by its culture. Guest lecturers from organizations such as Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the UK's electronic intelligence agency, or Google's DeepMind Artificial Intelligence Company are helping to connect academics to the outside world, of course, to their advantage.

We must pay tribute to the British, who are trying to collect all the best around the world, including educational methods. And our country, Russia, with its phenomenal scientific successes, is in the zone of their special attention.