Yet again education is in the news - this time about the amount of holidays children should take in the summer (which incidentally, some have already changed). Next month , no doubt, Mr. Gove will have another thought about examinations, apprenticeships and the like and yet another group of children will find their work re-assessed by stressed out educationalists who do not know if they are standing on their head or their nether regions.
Last year I taught in a large college situated in an east midlands town which has one of the highest level of NEETS in the country (for those not in the know, this means Not in Employment, Education or Training in the 16-24 age bracket). The kids I took on the courses were , for the most part, a delight to teach and had all of that youthful optimism that you would expect from 17-18 year olds embarking on life. Some of them had more talent than the others;some of them might actually do something with their futures. The sad fact though is that the vast majority, without higher qualifications or abilities, are consigned to a series of disappointments with little or no employment and benefit handouts to look forward to.
This may sound a tad jaded, but when I think back to when I was their age in the 70's, people virtually fell out of school or college into jobs daily. A level students could get management training jobs and if you were a graduate (the top 2%), the world was your oyster. My generation (and more specifically, my fathers baby boomer generation), therefore find it difficult to fathom where it all went wrong.
As a parent of four children, three of whom are still in education, I wonder why we press them to do so well with qualifications. I see young adults who excelled at school, got into their chosen university, ending up with a good grade degree, now taking menial jobs (when they can find them) and living back at home. some have written thousands of job applications with no luck. Universities are claiming lower numbers of students applying for courses this eyar. Why are they surprised? And if graduates can't get jobs, what hope for the others?
At the other end of the scale, I have been searching for an paid outlet for my talents. I have been a university lecturer, researcher, project manager and consultant. Thanks to the combined "talents" of our political masters I will have to find work until I am at least 65 - perhaps 70. This I am more than willing to do - if I can find it. But with so many young people out of work, what price experience? If they can employ someone younger for a lower wage they will.
"Just call me Dave" and his chums do not seem to grasp the concept that if there are no jobs, how can people be 'encouraged' back to work. Every time a new company advertises a job, see how many so called these 'scroungers' apply. Thousands. Anyone therefore will a shred of intelligence would conclude that what we need are more jobs - not less funding or penalising those who cannot find it; and raised wages (not just for those poor hardworking MP's and their banker buddies).
Until then, the road ahead looks bleak. What's more, there's no signposts to tell us where it's heading.
