[tde-users] Re: [OT] rant about education :)

Once upon a time in the 80s and eary 90s the situation was quite simillar. But then came "Schüssel I" and with it the decline of the education system which is still ongoing. In the days long gone the A level was not centralized, but you were allowed at any university - and the knowledge you gained at school was sufficient to enable you to follow the lectures at university. Then the conservatives started "optimizing" or "reforming" the education system. A level certificate is now centralised (a great "improvement") and prepared by some private company. Additionally there is a regular school certificate. Stuff taught for A level is plain useless at a univerity, so all universities introduced entry exams and "trial" semesters.

But to give you a rel live examples from 5. class (age ~ 15, still 3 years to go for A level): - Pupils are told how prime factorization works. They are not told what to do with it - never. - Comes "Linear equations", 6 months later 2D vectors. They are not told that these 2 things are the same. - Geometry, "2 lines may be parallel or have one intesecting point or none". Then they learn a methode to find "the" line that does not intersect with a given line. They are not told that there are infinite non-intersecting lines, nor are they told the correct way to build a inequality to describe all non-intersecting lines. - Trigonometry: taught sine theorem and cosine theorem, but not a single word that they need 3 independent specifications to define an triangle and why and when to use sin/cosine theorem to get the other 3 specs. - They are never told how to solve a problem by using or combining prior knowledge - this is the absolute nogo for universities. And its quite astouning how the schoolbooks mange to not-teach this vital skill. To sum it up: Austrian school system is totally broken nowadays. Funny thing is, in the 80s austrian school system was superior to german, now its the other way round - but not because Germany did real improvements, on the contrary, they are just slower with "improving".