Social planning or social control?
Posted by Anna Bull on January 18th, 2007
Proposals are being discussed by the government to raise the school leaving age from 16 to 18 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6254833.stm). 76% of this age-group are already in education, so this policy is aimed at the remainder who are entering the labour market without specific skills. While it could be seen as a push to give the UK economy the edge with a highly educated workforce, there is also another side: the use of education as social control. Young people, young men in particular, without anything to do, have always been seen as a threat to society as they (we) have the least to lose – usually without mortgage, kids or other responsibilities – so are unpredictable. Keeping 16 and 17 year olds in education or training is a way of monitoring them by designating an institution to be responsible for them.
Although this sounds somewhat Big Brother-ish, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. For many people, simply having somewhere to go when you get up in the morning, and someone who notices whether you turn up or not, could be the difference between having self-respect or not. Having spent some time unemployed (I called it ‘freelance’), albeit at a slightly older age, I can safely say it’s a very depressing way to pass the time - waiting for time to pass is really all you’re doing (11% of 16-18 year olds in England are still outside education, training or work, although some of these may be carers).
However, whether the ‘helping’ hand of the state is construed as friendly or threatening is another problem. ‘We’re doing it for your own good’ might not be accepted as a good enough excuse. How about ‘we’re doing it because we’re scared of you’?
Anna Bull is an SPS student at Lucy Cavendish college.
Filed under: education on January 18th, 2007
Anna I entirely agree on your point that constructive education aimed at 16-18 year olds should not be seen as an infringement of their rights but if anything an attempt to give skills to an otherwise near unemployable sector of the work force. Might I add that government need not insist on schooling during the sixth form but look towards vocational training for those who know they will not go on to higher education. After all a vocational skill would see these students in much better stead once they left than to pointlessly drum into them three A-Levels. Your thoughts….
I’m going to agree with Will’s point there - it’s a good one. Mainly because I was going to bring up the issue that I’m sure you may have noticed in Scotland - the fact that our system lets people leave school and go to university with varying levels of education. It used to be true in my school that a large fraction of the year group left after Fifth Year (following their Highers) either to go off to a Scottish university or to work, and the ones that stayed on for Sixth Year would do Advanced Highers (or CSYS, as it was in the old days…) to get into English universities or something competitive like Medicine. But now (or at least in my school, but I doubt it’s confined to there) most of the year group seems to be staying on an extra year (something which makes even less sense to me considering it’s a private school and these people’s parents are forking out money for them to do nothing) to simply sit around in the common room. Generally people start out doing a number of Highers/Advanced Highers, but once the unconditional Scottish university offers start coming in, they literally drop everything. What makes this worse is that my dad (who teaches at Glasgow Uni) has analysed their admissions process with reference to how well students actually do, and has concluded that if you do absolutely nothing in Sixth Year you are far more likely to fail than everyone else, even if you have 5 shiny As at Higher.
So I supposed my point is this – perhaps it’s a good idea in theory, but not in practice. Like Will said, wouldn’t it make much more sense to give a lot of students vocational education rather than attempting to make them study something they don’t want to do and likely won’t put a lot of effort into? More education is a wonderful idea, but only if people actually take advantage of it.
Wow. That was a long comment. Sorry.
Another view point which many young people have is that they are fed up with school- an enviroment where they have little choice over how they control their time. This is why many people drop out during/after GCSEs. They are not going to thank anyone trying to force them to do something. A few weeks or months having literally nothing to do- no purpose in life can be a great spur to action. Of course this is not a financial option for most people but a similar effect could happen in a full time mindless job.
I think the issue then is to enable people to return to eductation more easily after a break, better motivation and more focus from the students/apprentices leading to better results. The question then is how to reach those in the depressing situation of waiting for time to pass.
One possible oppertunity could come from their school. Exam certificates mostly have to picked up in person a couple of months after reuslts day, if everyone outside of education had an interview with a careers advsior at this point (through Connections perhaps) they would be able to start with the January cohort for courses.
A way of engaging with people when they want to but without them going off the rails perhaps?
Sorry I haven’t replied to your points before. First of all, although I couldn’t find any specific information about the proposals (there’s a consultation paper coming out soon though), I think that vocational education rather than just further school is definitely on the cards, as well as work experience schemes, so a variety of options will be available. I’m sceptical in that all of these approaches have been tried before (eg Youth Training Schemes in the 80s and subsequently, which were criticised for providing cheap, no-strings-attached labour to employers), but the difference this time is that it will be compulsory.
And as Clare points out, careers counselling plays an extremely important role here. I dont’ know about in this country, but in New Zealand, my careers advisor was worse than useless - she was also the sewing teacher (yes I know that sounds antiquated - it was last century) which doesn’t automatically mean that she was rubbish but she was. I’d be interested to hear people’s views on whether high school careers guidance is worthwhile here in the UK.
And having taken time out following my first degree, I can also sympathise with Clare’s point about a few months off being beneficial, especially if you’re able to travel, and mindless jobs do have the effect of spurring you on to something better. But I would worry that, as I said in my post, doing nothing could be destructive for some people. Then there’s those who take several years or even decades to figure out what they want to do…
And as if to corroborate Clare’s point, the Independent http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article2177987.ece says that ‘thousands of teenage drop-outs return to school or college within a year - realising they have made a mistake in quitting full-time education at 16′.