Something Erik and I have to be proud of (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Zé Tahir
- Start date
Ze, we don't need anymore proof that Scandinavia rules, it's been proven beyond any shadow of doubt over and over, you can stop saying it now. 
Let me ask you something on that note btw: my boss likes to tell his clients Holland is nothing like Belgium (despite the language being the same in Flanders). He always says "the Dutch are the Scandinavians of the Continent" which of course I always took as a great compliment
But would you agree with that?
Sweet username
Let me ask you something on that note btw: my boss likes to tell his clients Holland is nothing like Belgium (despite the language being the same in Flanders). He always says "the Dutch are the Scandinavians of the Continent" which of course I always took as a great compliment But would you agree with that?
Let me ask you something on that note btw: my boss likes to tell his clients Holland is nothing like Belgium (despite the language being the same in Flanders). He always says "the Dutch are the Scandinavians of the Continent" which of course I always took as a great compliment
But would you agree with that?
As Maximus says "I have seen much of the rest of the world, it is murky and dark, Rome is the light.". It's true though, Holland is like Scandinavia in all the good ways, but none of the bad ones. It's like Scandinavia moved to the continent - a lot more pragmatic and much less uptight.
oh its not you dont worry
this guy http://juventuz.com/forum/member.php?u=2282
even though you are nothing the croatian system should be proud of
this guy http://juventuz.com/forum/member.php?u=2282
even though you are nothing the croatian system should be proud of
oh its not you dont worry
this guy http://juventuz.com/forum/member.php?u=2282
even though you are nothing the croatian system should be proud of
this guy http://juventuz.com/forum/member.php?u=2282
even though you are nothing the croatian system should be proud of
"Croatian system", bah, that doesn´t even exist anymore.
Okay gents, decent points, though, Zé, seriously man, anecdotal evidence is worth nada.
I'm sorry if I've been a bit aggressive over this. I've been reading the actual report, and it's a piece of unscientific bullshit.
Take their overall results: they've ranked everyone in each of six categories, then added their scores to give an overall total. It's nonsense - it measures nothing, averages everything out. The categories overlap, and the scoring system is almost entirely useless.
Now, on to a specific category. I picked on education before, so let's stick with that. What did they measure? Firstly, they tested a lot of school kids for literacy, numeracy and understanding of science. Great! I hope it was a good test, though I'd have to see it myself to know for sure - maybe it tested the wrong things, like a kid's ability to parrot knowledge, which is overemphasised in most education systems. We don't know. Let's assume that it was a good test however. The Netherlands scores well in this (as does Ireland!) but Finland is miles ahead of everyone else. Just ranking them number 1 here is a real disservice to them, but that's just my criticism of the scoring system. Greece, by the way, seems to suck at this test.
Next measure: %age of kids who go beyond compulsory education. This is an awful measure, neglecting entirely the varied compulsory education ages in the countries involved. It also awards the same merit to a kid who goes to uni as to a kid who went a year beyond school leaving age (which is, I think, 14 and younger in some countries in Europe). For example, in Italy, it's 14. In the UK, it's 16, and they're talking about making it 18. The report does not mention this at all.
Next up, we have the %age of kids aged 15-19 who aren't in education or work. I have no criticism of this measure.
Next, we have the %age of kids who expect to be working in a job that requires little or no skill at age thirty. This is strongly a function of the economy of the country, and is a highly biased measure.
Finally, the report mentions that early childcare is important, but it has no data on this.
Overall, we have a collection of dubious measurements combined in a systematically moronic way. I think this report sucks like an industrial vacuum cleaner.
BTW, I apologise fulsomely for the remarks about the Netherlands. They were based on an entirely ignorant summary of the report. There was at no point a measure of the "teachers expecting less" of the Dutch students. In fact, quite the opposite. The people worth castigating here are the BBC, whose standards of reporting on this report were pathetic - I'd chew out a student newspaper editor for printing this tripe.
Refs
BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6360517.stm
UNICEF report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/13_02_07_nn_unicef.pdf
Article on school leaving ages: http://www.right-to-education.org/content/age/index.html
I'm sorry if I've been a bit aggressive over this. I've been reading the actual report, and it's a piece of unscientific bullshit.
Take their overall results: they've ranked everyone in each of six categories, then added their scores to give an overall total. It's nonsense - it measures nothing, averages everything out. The categories overlap, and the scoring system is almost entirely useless.
Now, on to a specific category. I picked on education before, so let's stick with that. What did they measure? Firstly, they tested a lot of school kids for literacy, numeracy and understanding of science. Great! I hope it was a good test, though I'd have to see it myself to know for sure - maybe it tested the wrong things, like a kid's ability to parrot knowledge, which is overemphasised in most education systems. We don't know. Let's assume that it was a good test however. The Netherlands scores well in this (as does Ireland!
) but Finland is miles ahead of everyone else. Just ranking them number 1 here is a real disservice to them, but that's just my criticism of the scoring system. Greece, by the way, seems to suck at this test. Next measure: %age of kids who go beyond compulsory education. This is an awful measure, neglecting entirely the varied compulsory education ages in the countries involved. It also awards the same merit to a kid who goes to uni as to a kid who went a year beyond school leaving age (which is, I think, 14 and younger in some countries in Europe). For example, in Italy, it's 14. In the UK, it's 16, and they're talking about making it 18. The report does not mention this at all.
Next up, we have the %age of kids aged 15-19 who aren't in education or work. I have no criticism of this measure.
Next, we have the %age of kids who expect to be working in a job that requires little or no skill at age thirty. This is strongly a function of the economy of the country, and is a highly biased measure.
Finally, the report mentions that early childcare is important, but it has no data on this.
Overall, we have a collection of dubious measurements combined in a systematically moronic way. I think this report sucks like an industrial vacuum cleaner.
BTW, I apologise fulsomely for the remarks about the Netherlands. They were based on an entirely ignorant summary of the report. There was at no point a measure of the "teachers expecting less" of the Dutch students. In fact, quite the opposite. The people worth castigating here are the BBC, whose standards of reporting on this report were pathetic - I'd chew out a student newspaper editor for printing this tripe.
Refs
BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6360517.stm
UNICEF report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/13_02_07_nn_unicef.pdf
Article on school leaving ages: http://www.right-to-education.org/content/age/index.html
Haven't seen you so riled up before, mik
It's junk science, a really poor report which will nevertheless by used to inform national and maybe even EU policy, and it's being reported in the media uncritically as a careful study with rankings which mean something. Worse, the public won't read it critically - hell, politicians won't read it critically, and so the cycle of moronic decisions driven by the kind of hand-waving bureaucratic imbeciles who wrote that and the misinformed public will continue. It's a depressing indication of how important critical reading skills and understanding of the scientific method are, and how rare they are in society.
Okay gents, decent points, though, Zé, seriously man, anecdotal evidence is worth nada.
I'm sorry if I've been a bit aggressive over this. I've been reading the actual report, and it's a piece of unscientific bullshit.
Take their overall results: they've ranked everyone in each of six categories, then added their scores to give an overall total. It's nonsense - it measures nothing, averages everything out. The categories overlap, and the scoring system is almost entirely useless.
Now, on to a specific category. I picked on education before, so let's stick with that. What did they measure? Firstly, they tested a lot of school kids for literacy, numeracy and understanding of science. Great! I hope it was a good test, though I'd have to see it myself to know for sure - maybe it tested the wrong things, like a kid's ability to parrot knowledge, which is overemphasised in most education systems. We don't know. Let's assume that it was a good test however. The Netherlands scores well in this (as does Ireland!) but Finland is miles ahead of everyone else. Just ranking them number 1 here is a real disservice to them, but that's just my criticism of the scoring system. Greece, by the way, seems to suck at this test.
Next measure: %age of kids who go beyond compulsory education. This is an awful measure, neglecting entirely the varied compulsory education ages in the countries involved. It also awards the same merit to a kid who goes to uni as to a kid who went a year beyond school leaving age (which is, I think, 14 and younger in some countries in Europe). For example, in Italy, it's 14. In the UK, it's 16, and they're talking about making it 18. The report does not mention this at all.
Next up, we have the %age of kids aged 15-19 who aren't in education or work. I have no criticism of this measure.
Next, we have the %age of kids who expect to be working in a job that requires little or no skill at age thirty. This is strongly a function of the economy of the country, and is a highly biased measure.
Finally, the report mentions that early childcare is important, but it has no data on this.
Overall, we have a collection of dubious measurements combined in a systematically moronic way. I think this report sucks like an industrial vacuum cleaner.
BTW, I apologise fulsomely for the remarks about the Netherlands. They were based on an entirely ignorant summary of the report. There was at no point a measure of the "teachers expecting less" of the Dutch students. In fact, quite the opposite. The people worth castigating here are the BBC, whose standards of reporting on this report were pathetic - I'd chew out a student newspaper editor for printing this tripe.
Refs
BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6360517.stm
UNICEF report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/13_02_07_nn_unicef.pdf
Article on school leaving ages: http://www.right-to-education.org/content/age/index.html
I'm sorry if I've been a bit aggressive over this. I've been reading the actual report, and it's a piece of unscientific bullshit.
Take their overall results: they've ranked everyone in each of six categories, then added their scores to give an overall total. It's nonsense - it measures nothing, averages everything out. The categories overlap, and the scoring system is almost entirely useless.
Now, on to a specific category. I picked on education before, so let's stick with that. What did they measure? Firstly, they tested a lot of school kids for literacy, numeracy and understanding of science. Great! I hope it was a good test, though I'd have to see it myself to know for sure - maybe it tested the wrong things, like a kid's ability to parrot knowledge, which is overemphasised in most education systems. We don't know. Let's assume that it was a good test however. The Netherlands scores well in this (as does Ireland!
) but Finland is miles ahead of everyone else. Just ranking them number 1 here is a real disservice to them, but that's just my criticism of the scoring system. Greece, by the way, seems to suck at this test. Next measure: %age of kids who go beyond compulsory education. This is an awful measure, neglecting entirely the varied compulsory education ages in the countries involved. It also awards the same merit to a kid who goes to uni as to a kid who went a year beyond school leaving age (which is, I think, 14 and younger in some countries in Europe). For example, in Italy, it's 14. In the UK, it's 16, and they're talking about making it 18. The report does not mention this at all.
Next up, we have the %age of kids aged 15-19 who aren't in education or work. I have no criticism of this measure.
Next, we have the %age of kids who expect to be working in a job that requires little or no skill at age thirty. This is strongly a function of the economy of the country, and is a highly biased measure.
Finally, the report mentions that early childcare is important, but it has no data on this.
Overall, we have a collection of dubious measurements combined in a systematically moronic way. I think this report sucks like an industrial vacuum cleaner.
BTW, I apologise fulsomely for the remarks about the Netherlands. They were based on an entirely ignorant summary of the report. There was at no point a measure of the "teachers expecting less" of the Dutch students. In fact, quite the opposite. The people worth castigating here are the BBC, whose standards of reporting on this report were pathetic - I'd chew out a student newspaper editor for printing this tripe.
Refs
BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6360517.stm
UNICEF report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/13_02_07_nn_unicef.pdf
Article on school leaving ages: http://www.right-to-education.org/content/age/index.html
As much as the report can easily be dissected, the article by the BBC is even worse. There is no serious, reasonable, objective conclusion you can draw from interviewing an odd half dozen of Dutch children in order to support the claim the Netherlands is a good environment for young people.
The one "expert" they interviewed seems to be rather random in his choice of words and doesn't appear to offer any thorough argumentation at all. His claim that "parents pay a lot of attention to their children" can be interpreted in various ways and I would also like to point out Dutch culture is not by definition a monoculture meaning I would strongly argue I had a very different childhood than people my age who grew up in the North, which would of course completely undermine this "expert"'s view on Dutch youth (which he seems to rather easily generalise).
I could go on, but I don't think I have to. We agree the report should not form any basis for any governmental policy regarding youth, be that European or national.
To that extent I'm thrilled the new government that was formed in Holland about one week ago has decided to appoint a scientist as Minister of Education and Science. It's not use handing that post to a politician.
You're very pessimistic
I've sent a letter about this to Ben Goldacre, the Bad Science guy. He has a weekly column in the Guardian, which he republishes on his site. I really recommend his stuff.
Erik, hope you don't mind my including your stuff!