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04/14/2001 Archived Entry: "Stressed"

I know that some people claim the new A-Level system that has been introduced in the UK creates a greater workload. However, let's face it, no-one really did that much work at school anyway. I find it very unlikely that the amount of work done at home has ever significantly changed over the last decade and I very much doubt it will change in the near future, simply because of the way teenagers think and work. In any case, it's not as if there's been a huge shift in the A-Level system; you're basically just making every subject modular and asking everyone to do one more subject. No big deal.

It's true enough that individuals will vary wildly in how well they can study and revise different subjects; however, if you watched any student who made complaints about being overworked, most of the time you'd discover that during the time they're supposed to be working, they will in fact be either procrastinating, having fun or complaining about too much work to their friends.

That's not to say that this is a bad thing. Procrastination is good, in moderation (who said that I have to make sense?). I just believe that students will latch on to any changes in the schooling system as a reason for why they can't do more work - they're cunning, students.

Don't mistake what I'm saying for an endorsement of the new system; by increasing the number of subjects to be taken, the government was hoping that people would opt for a broader range of subjects, e.g. people doing three sciences might take an arts subject. Unfortunately - and predictably - that hasn't happened and said 'three sciences student' simply becomes 'four sciences student'.

Now, when you come to university, everything changes...