Comments on: Don’t make them stay at school

By: Cliff

Cliff — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:00:30 +0000

The question is, what do we expect our education system to supply? What is the end product?

Do we wish to teach a mixture of academic subjects as well as vocational subjects? Do we just wish to turn out drone worker taxation cash cows for the Nu Labour project?

What the whole Nu Labour movement fail to understand is that people are different. Their abilities are different in both intellectual ways and physical ways. The whole concept of one-size fits all is completely wrong and no end of massaging figures will change that fact. John Redwood is a very intelligent man and his education, to be stimulating and challenging for him, would need to be different to someone with the IQ of a sugar puff. However, David Beckham for example has great physical abilities but may struggle to gain a degree in astro physics.
Education needs to be geared towards the individual with some following an academic path and others following a more vocational path. Some may even struggle with basic reading and writing, but that is why individual education programmes are needed.
We did have this in the UK up until the early 1970s, it was called the grammar, technical schools and secondary modern system, Not very PC but it worked very well.

By: Adam Johns

Adam Johns — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:01:39 +0000

This new scheme will suck up funding from teaching pupils Ages 4 to 16 who can still be taught something useful. Talk about slamming the stable door. 16 is atleast two years too late to be inspiring anybody to do anything with their education and all this law will do will damage the chances of those who would have remained in the system voluntarily. Although there will be a portion of these new pupils who go to technical colleges and take up apprenticeships, too many will end up staying on in their schools until Sixth Form, disrupting two more years worth of classes and end up failing some low-quality A-Levels. I’m not sure what Ed Balls is thinking. Stupid man.

By: EML

EML — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:56:40 +0000

An excellent post Mr Redwood.

Isn’t it just an admission of failure for the Government to have to raise the leaving age?

Why can’t children get the required skills by the age of 16?

By: Bazman

Bazman — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:52:08 +0000

I was always propelled by the idea of having some money. The threats and persuasion being that if I did not get at least some reasonable grades I would not be employed and would have to work with my father who was self employed. Not a nice picture for a 15 year old.
My wife was a supply teacher in Bedford for a short time looking after, not teaching, feral kids that the other teachers would not. They walk around, talk on the phone, make monkey noises, and any attempts to control them was met with ‘rights’.
They will of course be going onto Royal colleges to continue their education at great expense to the taxpayer and their rights will be explained very thoroughly and forcefully there. Prison.
Any government has to realise that not everyone can sit at a desk and learn and some may only ever have physical skills that require a certain technique. Tyre fitter for example. Very simple work, but are you going to let someone with little skill or technique fit tyres to your 50 grand or maybe 500 quid pride and joy? How about an exhaust? Battery? Could cost you dear if you do, as it’s not like the old days of bish, bash, fitted.
Many of todays school leavers do not even have the skills to develop these skills.

By: judy from the north

judy from the north — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:05:55 +0000

Spare a thought for the teachers in this awful decision to raise the school leaving age.Trying to handle students who dont want to learn is a nightmare they disrupt everyone else and can make teaching unbearable.We count down the days until unruly pupils leave and we dont have to give them a platform for bad behaviour.On the other side of the coin there are many millionaires out there who knew school was not for them what will be the provisa for them.I feel this is to keep the unemployment figures down and try to keep gangs off the streets surely not our job.

By: anoneumouse

anoneumouse — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:30:54 +0000

Education……….is not a natural phenomenon

As an individual, you have a desire to learn or you don’t.

You cannot be forced to learn

The state cannot create conditions and force you into acting like an academic, learner, communist or conformer. Those who are wise and do not wish to accept the gov…er…ment dogma, eventually, with no other means of rational protest, (go to extremes - ed)

Vote Labour, it really doesn’t make sense.

By: DennisA

DennisA — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:52:14 +0000

My Grandfather was a dyer in a cotton mill; my father, a joiner, left school at 14 and served a 7 year apprenticeship. My mother was a wartime engineering machinist and then stayed at home to bring up her family. We were “working class” by any definition.

My brother and I both passed the 11 plus and went to the local Grammar school. Our parents struggled to buy uniforms and pay for school trips but they managed. My brother stayed on in the sixth form, but I left at 16 even though I could have stayed on to 18. I had had enough of school.

I went into a pre-college training year in agriculture, my own choice, and subsequently went on to 3 years in agricultural college and made my career in that industry, even though there was no family background at all.

The more practically minded pupils who didn’t make Grammar School went to Technical College and learned trades and became bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, car mechanics etc. Of the remainder who went to secondary modern schools, many subsequently went of their own volition to night school to remedy failed exams and improve skills.

The system worked, there was total inclusion for poorer families because selection was on ability, not on income.

Why do so many politicians think it is unfair, including some Conservatives.

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:37:49 +0000

This is what the schools in our area offer:
Grammar School (indep

By: Stuart Fairney

Stuart Fairney — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:44:16 +0000

As a refugee of a desperate 1970’s state-run comprehensive, I have to agree entirely. Wild horses couldn’t have forced me to continuing that particular nightmare beyong the minimum legal age.

I did ultimately get back to education, but only after a couple of years when I’d worked things out for myself and went back to the right, vocational degree. Forcing the unwilling to do worthless courses is a wasteful gimmick (which starts to explain why the government are so keen on the idea I suppose).

By: haddock

haddock — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:33:29 +0000

A large part of the problem of education and training of young people is illustrated by your use of the words ‘gas engineer’ to describe someone who fixes a boiler.
A nurse who changes a dressing is not a doctor, the chap who fettles your pilot light is not an engineer.
If young people were convinced that a career in engineering would give them status and salary fitting their qualifications then there would be a ready supply of engineers.
It is arrogance of each generation to assume that they are cleverer than the last. For a long time schooling ended at the age of 14 and manhood started at 21, that is a 7 year apprenticeship in the art of being a grown up.
We now have the insanity of proposing to imprison children until 18 yet allowing them to vote, as adults, at 16.

By: Letters From A Tory

Letters From A Tory — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:59:16 +0000

Raising the school leaving age is not a crisis per se, because most other European countries have used such a system very successfully for decades. The main difference between them and us is that their education systems provide opportunities for everyone that are appropriate and beneficial to future employment and earnings. Pathetic A-levels and the appalling new diplomas do not provide anything like a comparable service.

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com