With Govt. plans to imprison kids in schools until they are 18, do they not realise that the situation will on

Question

only get worse. Riots in schools the lot. Why will nobody realise that the reason lots of kids have no jobs and no motivation is that academia is only the choice of a few. I would suggest that kids should be taught real jobs at school if they want like plumbers, hairdressers, mechanics, anything they can get a job with. Even graduates have realised that plumbers are now millionaires. This situation started when nobody was encouraged to train skilled workers. There is a whole generation who have been cheated just because the system favours the brainy kids and in my opinion completing an apprenticeship is just as worthy as any degree. No wonder the young people do drugs and drink. I feel sorry for them.

Answer 1

You have avery good point Camilla - I spent 40 years in teaching and went through the last raising of the school leaving age in 1972 - kids were terrible then having to stay on an extra year.
You are absolutely right that there should be an apprenticeship for all non academic kids - industry needs to get its own house in order instead of continually criticising education for not producing the right people for them to employ. Every kid had a chance to either do an apprenticeship or go into higher education in the 1950s and 1960s. Less than 10% went on to do a degree - Loads went into apprenticeships - no shortage of skilled people then - now they all take media studies and want to be telephone hygenists or the like! What happened?

Answer 2

I wholeheartedly agree with you. We have an apprenticeship program here and a good number of high school kids get into it. Some do so well and enjoy it, they are guaranteed jobs--they can even QUIT school at 16 because their livelihood is already determined. Some do, some stick it out to have the diploma or certificate, even if it's just to say they have it. Why should they stay in high school until 18, doing higher level math and social studies and even literature studies? Why does the government feel everybody needs to be the same? Geez, it's like jr. high, but on an enforced legal level.

Somewhere along the way, the RIGHT to an education has been confused with FORCING everybody to have an education and be the same. Society would fall apart if schools worked the way they were intended because everybody would be the same!

Answer 3

The problem, though, is that all of those things now need more education too. They need to know more math, more communication skills, more technology than people ever did in prior generations. They need to understand their pension plans, their investments, taxes, and the state of the economy, along with political science, psychology and science in order to get by in the world. They absolutely should learn foreign languages, because the chances are that they will be dealing with people from all over the world. I absolutely agree that the current situation, in which everyone thinks they want to get into an Ivy League school, is ridiculous, but I think that 18, and maybe 20, should be a minimum age for people to learn all the additional things this modern society has made it necessary to understand.

Answer 4

I have felt the same way for a very long time. Not all children are intellectually able to keep-up with college-minded students. However they shouldn't be left behind. I dreamed my son would be one of those 'brainy' types, however he wasn't. So although he did graduate, he did apprenticeship in Electronics and is now and has been working at the same Electornics Corporation since before he graduated. Now he is a supervisor. I am proud of him because he used the talents and skills he is good at to advance to a good paying job. We need more programs, where kids are tested, then allowed to learn what skills they are good at so they can get out of school and be able to get good paying jobs doing what they love.

Answer 5

i totally agree!
i work in schools, and was yesterday having a 'discussion' about the issue that if a child isnt doing well in school it must be because the teacher isnt doing something right. my arguement! bull, what a load of rubbish, kids dont like school for nemourous reason therefore wont learn, it has nothing to do with how we teach or anything, i left school with no gcse's and worked my butt off to get where i am now, but i did it later in life because i was ready then, i didnt want to be learning when i was younger i wanted to be working, learning REAL skills, getting a paycheck at the end of the week. some people just dont get that schools in general arnt working anymore, how we live now doesnt coordinate with keeping a young person (or if this new plan goes ahead young adults) in school!

allow them the chance to be young adults, make a wage, blow the wage, let them be young, let them make terrible mistakes, why should they have to go school, college, university, work??? where's there life?!!?!!!!

Answer 6

You must be living in a vacuum.

" imprison kids in schools until they are 18" Isn't that just a trifle exaggerated?

I guess that you never also heard about vocational or technical schools. Many do exist and train students in the skills that you mentioned and many more as well.

Answer 7

With the loss of industrial work in this country, the only work left is in retail, offices, or in academia.
For this, school leavers need to be able to read, write and integrate with fellow employees.
Social skills are an advantage.
If they can't hack this, they won't get a job.
Oh dear,
How sad,
never mind.

Answer 8

The Government has to hide the unemployment statistics somehow, especially now we are innundated with immigrants.

Answer 9

And I thought I was the only person who thinks like you

Answer 10

I suppose they can introduce the National Service again