The Derrick Campbell Column

FAILED STUDENTS CAN MAKE THE GRADE

27-08-2006

Amid all the hullaballoo about how easy exams are to pass these days,imagine being one of the youngsterswho failed their A levels or GCSE's.Dr. Derrick Campbell has words of comfort.

Many young people feel so pressured to do well by parents, society, government and peers that their stress levels almost disappear off the scale.

This pressure in many cases is so great that the very hint of not getting the grade you wish for is seen as an insurmountable failure, when in reality it is not.

Their anxiety is further fuelled by the nonsensical policy of the government, which seeks to get 50% of school leavers into higher education - which in my view is an attempt to create a future generation of pen pushers and adds unnecessary demands on those who are not academically inclined but who, if properly guided, would make excellent trades people.

There will be many young people who will feel disappointed because they have not obtained the grades they wanted but this does not mean that they have failed - it may simply mean that there are other areas that they can pursue and be successful.

One young person I've spoken to says school-children are driven to a point that is beyond what is realistic, by parents who push them to do well not because they care about their offspring but in a lot of cases simply because they want to impress their friends and neighbours.

It's about one-upmanship - being able to boast about what set their children are in or how much better their kids are than others.

In other cases he found that parents wanted their children to fulfil the dreams they could not achieve and force themdown a particular route that does not suit them.

Come on!…give our children a break, if they have not obtained the grade they wanted, give them a hug, tell them its not the end of the world and most important encourage them to try again.