Idea 331 of 500. Cluster 16: Education and the exam funnel
Mobile science laboratories that visit village schools on a timetable, so every A-Level science student does the practicals
The mechanism, from the book
177,000 qualify every year and 45,000 get a state university place. The other 130,000 are a market only partly served, and the polytechnic is not a second choice when it leads to a job.
Every idea in cluster 16 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Ask the science teachers at 3 village schools which A-Level practicals their students have never done, and why. Pack the equipment for 2 of those practicals into a van or a set of boxes, and run them at one school for a day with a trained teacher. Then ask the school, or its old pupils' association, whether they would pay for a visit every term. One school booking the next visit is the proof.
- Who pays first
- A village school, or its old pupils' association, that wants its A-Level science students to do the practicals the exam expects.
- What leaves today
- Students in village schools sit science exams without having done the practicals, and lose places to students in towns whose schools have the laboratories.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. OneThe Letter That Says Yes and Means No
177,588 qualified, 45,000 placed
More from cluster 16
- 321Employer-owned technical colleges: the hotels train the chefs, the port trains the planners
- 322Apprenticeship brokers who match a firm to a student and handle the paperwork, for a fee from the firm
- 323Nursing colleges to the British and Australian standard, with the return clause built into the fees
- 324Electrician, plumber and welder certification centres whose certificates are recognised abroad
- 325English tutoring by video for the districts, at a price a family can pay, with a test at the end
- 326Tuition classes that publish their pass rates, so that parents can compare
Idea 331 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.