From Straight-A to Illiterate: How the Education System is Failing a Generation

Imagine this.

A group of bright-eyed university freshers—some with top GCSE and A-Level grades, some with distinctions in national competitions—sit down to take their first written assessment at one of the UK’s leading universities. A simple diagnostic test. A short, structured piece of writing. Nothing complex.

And the results? Catastrophic.

Students unable to spell basic words. Sentences so disjointed they border on unreadable. Ideas left hanging mid-air, untethered by punctuation or coherence. A staggering number of students—far more than in previous years—demonstrating an alarming inability to communicate in written form.

How did we get here?

This isn’t a fluke. It’s not an isolated case. It’s the direct consequence of a school system that prioritises box-ticking over actual learning. A system where, for years, students have been drilled to fill in blanks, choose multiple-choice answers, and memorise key phrases, rather than engage in critical thinking, structured writing, or real-world problem-solving.

Ask these students when the University of Oxford was founded, and some will confidently place it in the 20th century. Ask them to analyse a short passage, and many will freeze—not because they lack intelligence, but because they were never truly taught how to think, how to question, how to write.

It’s easy to blame the students. But they are not the culprits. They are the collateral damage of an educational framework that measures success in percentages and pass rates, rather than in minds expanded and skills mastered.

We are now seeing the fallout.

University lecturers, scrambling to fill gaping knowledge gaps. Employers, struggling to find graduates who can write a professional email without glaring errors. An entire generation facing the consequences of an education system that has, for too long, substituted depth for efficiency, substance for superficial achievement.

The scariest part? We’re only at the beginning.

These same students will go on to become teachers, doctors, engineers, policymakers. If we don’t stop the decline, we are setting the stage for a society where clear communication, critical analysis, and intellectual curiosity become rare commodities.

So the question is: Do we let it slide?

Or do we demand better—for them, for the next generation, and for the future of this country?

Katie Kaspari

Unshakeable People Club