High Youth Unemployment

I found this article on how the lack of decent qualifications leads to youth unemployment: BBC Article

People are getting thousands of pounds in grants from the grants from the government for this stuff you know. The report, by Research by Centre for Cities (what a ridiculous name, by the way) suggests that areas where a (relatively) high number of students get a C grade or above in English and Maths have a lower percentage of youngsters aged between 18 and 24 unemployed. Thank you Sherlock.

The report suggests that government policy over previous years has led too many youngsters down the path of meaningless qualifications in order to boost league table positions, as until recently English and Maths didn't need to be included in the 5 A* to C used to calculate league table position. That's big of them, to blame the policy-makers.

The report mainly appears to blame schools, and ultimately teachers for this failure of many youngster to be equiped for the workplace however. I personally think there may be other factors:

1. The fact that there are league tables in the first place mean that schools are almost encouraged to push students down the path that will give them maximum chance of gaining as many C grades or equivalent, no matter what those qualifications mean or are in. Due to government policy allowing parents to choose schools for their offspring, the market is very competitive and a good or bad league table position could possibly be the difference between a school surviving financially or not.
2. Student apathy towards learning. The amount of times a student has told me "I don't need maths to do what I want to do" or asked "When am I going to use this in real life?". Many students now either don't care or will attempt to do just enough to get a C grade, which invariably means that they won't do enough. The standard reply of "You will use this to get a decent qualification, which will hopefully lead to a decent job" doesn't seem to wash any more, which is a shame, because it's true.
3. Schools have little or no power to actually discipline children due to woolly legal issues - no-one really know what teachers are allowed and not allowed to do. I'm not calling for a return to the days of canings in assembly, but being allowed to keep a child behind to actually complete some useful or worthwhile work is no longer available to a teacher. We need to give 24 hours notice, and generally the parents of those who need to stay behind won't allow their little darlings to do so.
4. That leads me onto the next issue - parents/family. In my 10+ years of teaching there has been  a marked change in the attitude of parents/carers whereupon all the mistakes made by their offspring must be the fault of someone else, usually the school in some way, shape or form. They will promise to employ their child when they leave school, and probably do so for a while until they realise that due to that promise of work, little Johnny failed to get any qualifications that will allow him to perform the job given to him at a reasonable standard. Statistics show that 80% of young people employed by their family are sacked within 12 months. Enough said.
5. The national curriculumn doesn't prepare young people for the world of work. I have some sympathy for those who ask when they are going to use simultaneous equations in real life. They clearly aren't (in my 10+ years I've struggled to find a use for the things outside of the classroom), so that topic should be pushed to the higher end, for those who may want to go onto do A Level maths. The government has made a start but there is still a long way to go, and the pressure to get as many C grades as possible (we're back to league tables) mean that most students can't use anything they've learnt in context anyway, and are unwilling to try.

And I haven't even mentioned Ofsted. But as usual teachers are at fault, not the lazy youth, unsupportive parents, unhelpful curriculum or government policy.

And they wonder why teachers are striking - it's not just about the pensions you know, the pension thing is just the glace cherry on a disgruntled cake!

The Lost Generation

There have been a few headlines this week regarding over a million unemployed 18 to 24 year olds for the first time ever in Britain. This is extremely unhealthy for the country's future, but is it a big surpirse and who is to blame?

Personally I believe that the various governments of the past 20 or so years are to blame, including the current effort, despite their promises to get these young people into work as soon as possible.

Essentially the problem, in my mind, boils down to the apparent importance of league tables and the resultant importance upon getting as many students as possible up to a C grade at GCSE in as many subjects as possible. This has led to the following:

1. In order to make standards appear to rise, the standard for a C grade (and most other grades) has dropped. It is still very difficult to get the top grades at GCSE, but to get a C grade is now far easier than it ever has been, despite what those in Whitehall say. 
2. Children aren't allowed to fail, because the consequences for a school are huge: reduction in budget and reduction in those wishing to attend that school all amount to a dying establishment. As a collegaue of mine said, it's like asking a an army general to go to war and return with no casualties - it will never happen, but due to education policy over the past 20 years, it actually nearly has happened in teaching. Every child, of any intellect, can gain 5 A* to C grades if they want to, and let's be honest, even if they don't, schools will attempt to do it for them (BTECs, come on down!).

As a result of the points above, the age group that is facing increasing unemployment don't actually know how to succeed because tbey've never had to lift a finger in order to do so up until now, so theefore don't know how to when it comes to the crunch, i.e. when they enter the workplace.

Unless children are allowed to fail in school, schools will never prepare children for real life. Unfortunately government pressure upon schools through agencies such as Ofsted mean that generations will continue to be lost until things like league tables and the mis-guided desire to allow everyone in school to succeed, whether they deserve to or not, will mean that young people won't have the desire to do their best (because they won't have learnt it) and achieve what they want to. Can you really blame the students? Why try outside of school when you never had to try in it? And can you blame schools for wanting to maintain their funding so that they can offer a quality education to all its students?

Another colleague of mine, having taught for around 20 years, said that in their time the standard of teaching has got so much better, but that has been counter-balanced by the plummet in the standard of student.

Unemployment Rises

This could go one of two ways; I could go on about all those poor teachers who are losing their jobs through no fault of their own (in many cases)  due to cuts in funding for education, or the thousands of PE and History teachers (as well as other subjects that are over-subscribed) who can't get jobs because there are simply too many of them about and not enough jobs. I am however, on the day when A Level results are published in England (regardless of the EdExcel computer blip last week), going to comment on the increase to 2.49 million unemployed in Britain, and the steep rise in youth unemployment.

What with the riots I'm getting slightly sick of seeing self-righteous politicians pontificating on my television about stuff they appear to know little about. Not only education, which is going to see reform in the way children are punished for breaking the rules, not before time I hasten to add, but policies are being drawn up to tell the police how to do their job too amongst various other new policies that make the politicians feel important about their role in society.

If only politicians would bother to talk to people who deal with those to whom the policies directly refer, namely teachers, youth workers and police. Has anyone in "power" bothered to actually listen to those who deal with young people day in, day out? I seriously doubt it, as they might hear things that they don't want to, or a brilliant idea that involves the government finding some cash.

There was footage of Prince Charles and Camilla touring parts of London affected by the rioting on the news. Now I have no real opinion of the Royal Family other than it generates millions of tourist pounds each year, which must be a good thing in a faltering economic climate. At least Charles speaks his mind and says what he thinks. Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant, but the point is that politicians could take a leaf out of his book and give proper opinions based upon proper knowledge rather than toeing the party line, saying things they believe they want the public to hear and slating the opposition.

Anyway, I digress. If you'd have asked a teacher from a state secondary school or college whether it was a surprise that unemployment amongst then young would rise,  I would put my last shirt on the answer being "yes" in almost every case. Why? I will, in my opinion, say why:

Reason 1 - Courses taken and "Qualifications" Gained
It is not possible to fail in the current educational climate. If you are not the most academic at school you will usually be sent to college to do a practical subject for a day or two per week. Now this is a good idea, but there is a stigma attached to it, one that is embellished by schools. Generally naughty kids get sent to college purely to get them out of the school's hair for a bit. This isn't always the case, and the teachers of the classes those naughty kids are usually in are very grateful, but it is a shame that others miss out. Not everyone can be academically minded, but this could give all children a chance to succeed at something in education. Funding is low though, so places are limited, which inevitably means that some who could benefit, miss out; usually the nice, quiet ones who would benefit the most.

English and Maths GCSE grades should continue to be compulsory, but even if you aren't up to G grade standard, you can take what is called "Entry Level Certificate". Bear in mind that a typical G grade maths question would be "Write the number three thousand and twenty eight in figures", you might get an idea of what is involved in the ELC - the irony of this acronym is not lost on me! If they are not up to basic maths and English, are these children really meaningfully employable? They will need to read instructions at some point, surely when diluting detergent or something, within the home at least. They must have a certificate though, essentially one advertising the fact they they can't perform the most basic calculations.

Fortunately the majority still manage to sit their GCSE exams, but anything below a C grade is regarded as a fail in many sections of the job world, however fresh faced youths will claim until they are blue in the face that their F grade is actually a pass in interview. I know someone who won't look at any grade for maths or English below a B; her logic being that the A* is the old A grade, therefore meaning that the current C grade is equivalent to the old D grade - a government minister may argue that she's wrong, particularly if his/her upcoming promotion depend upon improving exam results, but few others will argue. I remember her telling me about a conversation that she had with a young girl who had applied to be a secretary, and it went something like this:

Employer: Your application says that you passed 8 GCSEs.
Interviewee: Yes, that's right.
Employer: But the only one you achieved higher than D grade was Art, so you actually only passed one.
Interviewee: No, I passed 8, look - D in maths, E in English...
Employer: I suggest you change you CV to reflect the fact that you only passed one GCSE in Art, and perhaps think about retaking your English and maths exams. Thank you for your application, but we won't be requiring your services.

The interviewee was upset, but had schools been allowed to fail her in the first place, perhaps she would have gone that extra mile to get a C grade in maths and English instead of convincing her that anything other than U, N or X was a pass. Part of the problem being that colleges will take kids with these grades because more students means more money. You can understand then that there seems little incentive to do well at school in some people's eyes.

Reason 2 - I'm don't need this to do what I want to do
I don't know about you, but I didn't know what I wanted to do at the age of 15. The number of children who announce at the age of 14/15 that they are going to be lawyers, plumbers, carpenters etc is astounding. What do they need maths and English for? Actually, more than you think sunshine, but there's no convincing them. If in doubt they will announce that they are going to work for a family member. An interesting statistic that I often quote is that 60% of school leavers who go to work in the family firm are sacked within 6 months and 80% with a year, presumably due to the misguided belief that they are unsackable by a family member. Some are even more deluded, and I'll never forget a conversation I had with a former pupil that went along the following lines:

Student: I'm going to be an air stewardess when I leave school.
Me: You do realise that you get tested in maths and English as well as other general knowledge, and in some companies, every year or so, don't you?
Student: You're lying, a second language is a bonus but not a requirement.
Me: I'll just do a quick internet search and.....there you go - numeracy and literacy tests.
Student: Ok, forget that then. I'm going to be a midwife.
Me: That involves lots of qualifications.
Student: What does a midwife do?
Me: Delivers babies mainly.
Student: That's disgusting, I'm not doing that. I'll be a farmer then.
Me: They have to deliver baby animals.
Student: A model then.

At this point  I had to bite my tongue before saying something along the lines of "there's a limited market for balaclava models".

This was a real conversation, and not an uncommon one. And they wonder why no-one will employ them with their "pick a job title out of the air" mentality.

3. The World Owes Me A Job
This has been said a few times in the past few weeks on the news channels, but it is a genuine problem. Just because children make it to the end of school with some reasonable qualifications they believe that that entitles them to a job. It doesn't unfortunately - you still have to compete for the job, no matter what your qualifications are. Another conversation I had with a seemingly intelligent pupil went something along these lines:

Student: Within 5 years I'll be earning more than you as a solicitor.
Me: Are you not bothering to qualify then?
Student: You do a sh*t job with sh*t wages so even as I'm training I'll earn more than you.
Me: With an attitude like that you may struggle to get a placement.
Student: How much do you want to bet?
Me: Apparently I can't afford it.

Again, a real conversation with a "well-to-do" child, but not an uncommon attitude.

So is it any real surprise that youth unemployment has risen recently? Of course it's not. Had anyone of the policy makers bothered to ask the people on the front line their opinion, they'd have known this 10 years ago and may have been able to do something about it. As is usually the case, those who actually know aren't asked and things come to a head in a disastrous way. These attitudes were partly the cause of the recent riots and the lack of aptitude for work costs the country millions in job seekers allowance payments.

You live and learn I suppose, unless you are in government.