A-Opportunity and equality
All education systems may ultimately be judged in terms of equality of opportunity(1. This is often referred to in the debates over selective(2 versus comprehensive(3 schooling(4. The main issue is whether everyone has the same opportunities for educational achievement or whether elitism(5 of one sort or another is inherent in(6 the system. League tables(7 for schools and colleges may actually help unintentionally to perpetuate(8 inequalities, while claiming to promote the raising of standards. Inevitably, league tables divide educational institutions into good and bad, success and failure, resulting in a two-tier system(9, or at least that is how the public perceives(10 it. The ability of better-off(11 parents and wellendowed(12 schools to push children towards the institutions at the top of the league may, in the long term, have the effect of depressing(13 opportunity for the less well-off(14 or for children from home environments that do not provide the push and motivation to excel(15. Financial support of different kinds can help to make educational opportunity more equal. There are, for example, scholarships(16 or bursaries(17 that make it possible for less privileged youngsters to afford tertiary(18 education. Student loans(19 allow undergraduates(20 to pay for their tuition fees(21 and living expenses while they are studying. But few would claim that real equality ofopportunity has been achieved.
B-Other debates and issues Some people think we should return to an emphasis on the three Rs, the traditional, basic skills. [reading, writing and arithmetic]
Literacy and numeracy are skills no one can afford to be without. [the ability to read] [the ability to count / do basic maths] Curriculum reform is often done for political reasons rather than for good educational ones. [changes to what is covered in the national syllabus = plan of what is to be studied] Nowadays, lifelong/continuing education is an issue, and creating opportunities for mature students is important. [education for all ages] [adult students older than the average student] Special needs education is expensive because class sizes need to be small or one-to-one. [education for children who cannot learn in the normal way, because they have some disability] [one teacher and one pupil, not a group] Children are unhappy at school if there is a lot of bullying. [threatening behaviour] Some headteachers complain that getting to grips with constant new government guidelines on what schools should be doing is a distraction from what they ought to be focusing on. [advice (often official) on how something should be done] [takes attention away]
Language help Notice how compound adjectives like well-off, well-endowed, high-achieving, badly-performing can be used in comparative and superlative forms, e.g. better-off, best-endowed, higher-achieving, worst-performing.
-English Vocabulary in Use Advanced
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