Education and Class

The basis for the UK’s education system really seemed to be focused on narrowing student’s line of work, presumably in order to give them a more in depth look into their line of work. By the age of 16 they have to choose 3 topics that they will focus on and those three topics will determine what kind of job market they can look into. This type of structure struck me as really odd because of the educational track that I’ve seen many people in the United States go down where their plans have changed and they decide to follow a new track in order to find what they want to do with their lives. The way the lecture explained the education system from start to finish was really helpful in understanding just what students in London have had to go through. Like I said a huge amount of their education system seems to be intent on narrowing down where someone wants to go so that they can gain a deeper understanding. The types of schools that exist in London also seemed a lot more intense than the number of types of schools that exist in the States. The blend of their independent and state schools seems to be much more divided when examined compared to our independent and state schools. As our lecturer pointed out there is a difference in London within State sponsored schools and the privately run schools, and while I’m sure there is a difference on a school to school basis in those two areas it is hard for me to imagine that the same level of difference exists. The class system here does seem to be much more open in where the divisions are in a public setting while in the states there seems to be an obvious difference with the extremes and when each individual is examined on the whole it is not as clear.