Young People deserve Better Today’s Daily Telegraph leads with the claim that ‘Too many teenagers going to University’ Should we not be rejoicing that 44% of 18-Year-Olds in England are seeking to go to University? Why the outburst from the Education Secretary and others? They are also complaining that more students are getting A or A* in their A-level examinations. Why are they so concerned? Their concern is ‘that too many students come out with a lot of debt, the levels of debt are astronomical, and in many cases they come out with skills that the market place does not want’ ‘The students aren’t going to be able to pay back the debt so that is a big problem. Who is going to pay? We are giving them money, the taxpayer is funding this, and the tax payer is not going to get paid back’ The above paragraph puts the Government position very aptly. They see the matter as one for ‘the market’ They give no consideration to the position in which all young people find themselves. The Government solution - Degree apprenticeships provided by the likes of Goldman Sachs, Amazon and Unilever ? ? ? ? Let’s look at the real situation. First let us remember that at one time industry, like Morris and Brush works in Loughborough, Chatham Dockyard and Central Electricity Generating Board in Medway, British Rail and London Underground, Industrial concerns in Coventry and the West Midlands (all areas I know well) and in many other districts around the country provided excellent apprenticeships which gave experience of working with skilled workers allied to educational training. I benefited from a University course in Mining Engineering fully paid for by the National Coal Board with further practical experience and training beyond that. In those days industry saw the value of developing young people. The Colleges of Further Education, the Colleges of Advanced Technology and other forms of higher education provided an alternative to University which was more geared to the needs and aspirations of young people, and indeed to those of industry and commerce. Sadly Government policy moved many of these Colleges into the University sector thereby destroying the unique purpose they served. Now - What is the position like for children and young today? We have an education system which, from the day they first enter nursery school, is failing to meet their needs. The while system, from Nursery to University, is geared to testing and selection. At no stage in our education system is due consideration given to the best methods of developing and educating our young people. It is clear that young people learn best through joint activity, play and story telling. they need to gain a wide experience, laregely through activity. This failure in approach continues through their school lives in which they often find little relevance in the work that they are set to do. They are now forced to stay in education, or some form of training, until they are eighteen. Past experience has shown that this is not the most suitable approach for many young people. By the age of sixteen they are beginning to feel the need of an independent existence. They may feel that their intetests lie in continuing their education, at school or college, leading on eventually to University. However, many young people wish to move into employment, to create for themselves a future work career. All of these young people seek a future in which they both provide for themselves and develop their interests and abilities in meaningful and purposeful work. What they are now offered does not provide this. Statistics show that around half of young people are forced to work in retail or similar occupations which do not provide for a future life time of constructive work. It is now accepted that working class students, at University, have to work in such situations whilst trying to study, knowing that if they do eventually complete their degree course, they will have a large debt which will stay with them, making the chance that they will be able to buy a house and live a normal life, which they see their more affluent friends enjoying, a very distant prospect. Young people are faced with a situation whereby they have to take unpaid placements in order to gain experience because without experience they will be unable to enter many professions and careers. They are being both exploited and denied opportunities from which older generations benefitted. Our present political and economic system is failing in every area that one can consider. The only aim that the Government has is to try to preserve that system without any regard as to why it has failed and what needs to be done to create a sustainable viable economic system that can deal with all the problems that exist. Climate change, Covid, the whole economic system that collapsed in 2008 and has still not recovered, the fall out from Brexit, the refugee crisis brought about by wars in which we have played a major part, all of these have shown the failure of free enterprise capitalism. The burden of these multiple failures will be born by the younger generation and yet that generation is given no consideration by Government, political parties, the established media. Voices like the Children's Commissioner and others are just whistling in the wind, simply ignored, as all other crutics of Government are ignored. It is time we, as a nation, woke up to the reality of the situation and instead of moaning about our young people, we should appreciate all they have to offer and we should give them the priority they deserve.