I love age limits, except when it’s 14-18 night and I can’t get in

An interesting part of the Queen’s pre-speech speech(?) was a proposed bill to keep youngsters in education or training up until the age of 18 by making further education compulsory.
It’s an interesting one in as much as College has become just about compulsory for anybody who does half well at their GCSE’s, the entry criteria is pretty low, I mean I got in and thats proof enough really.
This is a government initiative to tackle the growing demographic of ‘Neets’, yes it is yet another annoying little acronym that represents the ‘Not in Education, employment or training’ bunch which so quaintly seem to hang around shops and population centres.
Over the past ten years this group has grown from 20% to 25% of 16-17 year olds and anyone has to admit that having one fourth of this age group doing absoloutely bugger all is a trifle worrying however I’m not sure the answer lies in simply upping the school leaving age.
I imagine that this argument has been repeated in the past, back in 1899 the government must have been concerned at the amount of 11 year olds who hung around on the streets learning about how to pick pockets by reading Dickens (spot the discrepency there if you can) Equally in 1944 the coalition government must have been concerned about all the 13 year olds running around the bombsites and collecting shrapnel, ‘what should we do?’ they asked and the answer was simple, ‘keep the little bastards in school until they are 14′
So it goes, the school leaving age has been 16 since 1964 but only in effect since 1972 and now yet again the nation wonders why on earth all these 16 and 17 year olds aren’t in college getting an education, or in a workshop learning a trade or at the very least working in a proper job.
Yes it’s a doozie of a question and I’d love to be able to provide an answer, I don’t know but I’m pretty sure that there is something unattractive in being forced into school and the fact that not everyone fits into the little round hole like the little round peg they are meant to be means that by the time it comes to making the choice between academia, vocation or employment a lot of people have really had enough and surprise, surprise they do diddly squat.
I think this has more to do with a breakup in what it means to be a society, what it means to function as a group of people, there is much too much influence on getting something for nothing and not enough on taking pride in your work, pride in what you can give to the world, pride in what you can achieve.
Its a sad fact but in educational establishments its actually a crime to be clever, in fact being called clever is a bit of an insult? it’s confused me greatly so maybe I’m not that clever but being termed a boffin or geek, nerd or braniac is actually meant as a derogotory term and consequentally the emphasis seems to rest on a downward shift plus people either do something in order to get vast amounts of money or they do shit all and hope that they will just accidentally come across a magic lamp which grants them cash based wishes whilst hating all those people who seem to be smart enough to go and earn it.
I’m in favour of education, I think it helps people to understand the world more and results in more rounded individuals who suffer less of a daily mail disorder but age restrictions on when you can leave school don’t seem to work, what will happen is that in 2017 when the first 18 year olds leave college and school the same percentage of disaffected people will drop out and become part of the Neet class, it just defers the problem, its not as though a 16 year old cannot get a job with the skills that they ought to possess when they leave secondary school.
This is difficult situation because whilst something clearly needs to be done I’m not sure if more of the same is going to work, citizens in this country at present receive 12 years of compulsory education and this is set to rise to 14 years. You have to wonder if whether in a couple of decades when there are 19 year olds and 20 years olds dossing about on the dole the government will raise the leaving age to 21, make university compulsory and have done with it.
But hang on…that might not be such a bad idea.
I’d say a massive rehaul of basic state education was necessary with much, much, much more emphasis on social values, of how to work together to acheive together. Going on and getting a pile of cash that Scrooge Mcduck could swim in doesn’t create a coherent society of go getters, it creates a society of divided, money driven zealots and because like I said not everyone fits the ideal it creates a disenfranchised and resentful underclass.
So what? thats the argument from those people who say they’ve made their bed and they can bloody well sleep their hangover off in it like the dole funded alcoholic morons they are; its not my problem.
Yet it is your problem and its my problem too, why, not because we’re liberal do gooders but because our streets, towns and communities have become plauged with this underclass and nowhere we go seems to be free of it it blights our streets and our country and it is creating a drain which will eventually pull us under, so sorry, but it is your problem unless you want to go somewhere else in the world, great idea but rest assured it won’t go away and if anything it will probably spread eventually it’ll find you or your children or their children and then the problem never addressed in the past just comes back at you twice as bad.
So here it is, as I’ve stated education needs to be reformed and actually I’m all in favour of plenty of it, sure we’re not all going to be microbiologists and nuclear physicians but there is no harm in having a good grasp of knowledge, langauge and maths and if there is a serious emphasis on co-operation as opposed to ruthless competition then we can get generations emerging from education who work together, who utilise their skills and knowledge to better our society and to make this species work, not sit in the dog and duck drinking away the dole cheque and not hide away in a gated community with the gadgets and goods that a good salary can buy.
Age limits won’t help us its the direction in which we aim the young and the way we treat them whilst they are still impressionable which truly affects the outcome.