Questioning is important for developing rhetorical and socialisation skills. School cannot only be preparation for work. I believe that they should be maintained up to a certain point in schooling, especially for the youngest. then probably as you say at the age of 16 more specialised training should take place. At that point, depending on the training path chosen, one can opt for teaching based less on oral questioning.
In licei scientifici, you get maximum to learn about few types of differential equations in mathematics. Do they go further in England? Like with series, Taylor developments, functions in more than one variable etc?
Oral questioning should be its own separate subject like creative writing should, not incorporated in academic subjects. Someone who is not good at dealing with oral questioning shouldn't be classified as incompetent in the subject nor have lower grades, as they can know the subject just as well as someone who performs well in that assessment method, and they may know it even better than them.
Over-reliance on certain methods creates instances like me, who graduated with 70% from liceo scientifico but had knowledge and could apply it to a level of over 90% if given alternative assessment methods. Doing that, ruins a person's future. I could've graduated from the University of Cambridge, which is number 2 in the world after Harvard, not just because of its academic excellence (including things like 1:1 tutoring with subject matter experts and accomplished people that only Cambridge, Oxford and very few other universities offer) but also because of its research excellence worldwide.
However, just because they were too lazy to offer appropriate alternative assessments, I am forever barred from institutions like that where you need to have graduated with 100% to be considered, other than other parts of your application needing to be excellent. Not just that, but you're also considered laziness just because being a good teacher is optional.
Sure, I could have become better at oral questioning but I had other ongoing personal issues within private areas of my life and no support was offered from my school. So, while the fault lies in both parties (myself and the schools I have attended), the majority of it lies with the schools because they:
- Were adults (while I was a minor)
- They have a duty of care which is built-in in the special relationship of teacher-student
Regarding the mathematics syllabus, in England you can take A-level Maths and A-level Further Maths. A-level is the type of qualification that is more or less considered in the same way as going to a liceo in Italy. A-level Maths also contains:
- Series, which you mentioned
- Vectors
- Mechanics
- Discrete random variables
- Poisson distribution (and a lot more probability and statistics than I certainly did)
You can check the full syllabus: for
Cambridge International,
AQA
A-level Further Maths also contains:
- Summation of series and more about series (I think Taylor developments are here in Further Maths)
- Polar Coordinates
- More on Vectors
- Further Mechanics
- Even more probability and statistics
Full syllabus:
Cambridge International,
AQA
They may get some good grades in schools, sure, but qualification exams are what matter here. I don't know about Canada.
I provided some syllabi so you can judge for yourself how different or similar their programmes are. You can also have a look at past "papers" online to see the level of difficulty of their exams and make your own opinion. I would say also that some people say most English students are considered "lazy" though. So, having top grades is not all that common, even more so with the pass grade at 40%.
For example, in November 2023 only 9.4% of those taking A-level Maths with Cambridge International have achieved an A* and only 14.4% have achieved A. However, 55.1% have achieved A or above in Further Maths, which is fitting because only few choose that subject and most of those who do are good at maths.
University here recruit based on your 3 highest A-level grades, and hardly anybody takes more than 4 A-levels anyway due to the scope of the programmes. The best universities also have the best facilities and equipment, not to mention the best research output which is what's most important.