#3Rsto18. Keeping adolescents in school for longer is political cr*p

I got this from Stephen Twigg pp. Andy Burnham:

Dear John,

As Ed said on Tuesday, there is already a clear path for those who do A Levels and then go to university.
But we need a clear path for the forgotten 50 per cent.
He talked about creating a new, gold standard vocational qualification – the Technical Baccalaureate.
Michael Gove wants narrow, elitist education. We are the party of One Nation Education.
Instead of going back to O-levels, we will look forward. Instead of coming up with a plan on the back of an envelope, we will engage the experts – in business and education.
Every young person must study English and Maths until 18. Incredibly, we are one of the only developed countries in the world that doesn’t require this.

I hope you will join our campaign, by signing up here, or tweeting about it using the hashtag #3Rsto18.

We will build this One Nation Education system by raising standards for all.

Stephen Twigg

This annoyed me, because the staying on until 18, isn’t about education, It’s about keeping them off the unemployment register (as was raising school-leaving age from 15 to 16) and keeping them off the streets.

Having dealt with 15 year-olds, who, pre-Blair and his Ma-in-Law’s advice on truancy and homework imposition’s, used to effectively wag their final year, I’m not a fan of compulsory education past the point of where it can have any benefit other than as a tool of Social control.

My e-mailed response is below:

I find that position too simplistic. Some will never achieve “A”-level maths standard and some will rebel if made to try.

Better to go for a matriculation system, linked to something like Piaget levels and then match future Education/training to that standard.

Even the buffoons doing PPE degree’s need quite a good level of Maths but does a road sweeper?

As for English: Do you mean Shakespeare and Dickens and Shelley? Do you mean Grammatical structure? Do you mean ability to read The T’s & C’s of a Credit card company? Do you mean ability to read the Daily Star?
Again it’s a matriculation problem and a disaffection problem.

Remember; before Blair, 20% of the population were classified as ESN. Blair wanted a quarter of these to achieve 5 GCE grade C’s.

Having the same target’s for everyone is crass.

I, myself, would never have made a basket ball player, even if I’d trained all my life.

I’ve no doubt that many school-refuser’s mature later in life and would benefit from being able to re-enter academic education much later than at 18.

I’ve also no doubt that between the ages of 14 and 17 (maybe 13 to 16 for girls), most adolescents would benefit from withdrawal from formal education and offered a sort of extended Summer camp. There they can mix socially and form temporary gangs. This could provide a way of killing of the neighbourhood gang culture, which leads to crime gangs.

The young , more athletic types would have opportunities to exercise and demonstrate their physicality without destroying public property. Possibly this would involve sports, construction activities or training as police etc.

A further thought is that Pan-European Camps would help incentivise the learning of foreign languages and would give people a greater appreciation of other cultures.

We could even end up with some politicians who’ve seen a bit of the World outside of Five Star, expense account jolly’s.