Schools and colleges in Wales not preparing students for university, says report

Wed, 11 May 2011

A survey has found that most Welsh students feel that their school or college had not sufficiently prepared them for life at university . The study into over 1,000 students showed that 96 per cent of the current batch of first-year university undergraduates believed themselves not well enough prepared to move into higher education .

It was also found that 43 per cent felt they did not have the necessary study skills, while 25 per cent admitted that they would have benefited from a greater amount of in-depth study of a subject earlier in their education.

The report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), revealed a dramatic fall in school standards in Wales, and it is argued that the national curriculum was too restrictive and was failing to produce the skills that university students required.

Philip Dixon, director of the education union ATL Cymru, commented "We obviously need to get the sectors talking to each other more effectively so that they can understand the needs and restraints of each. But there is a more profound debate that now needs to start about the curriculum in our schools which is still over prescriptive and lacking in freedom and interest."
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