Smudger":1123njnf said:
No, it really was like that. One boy applied to be a stoker in the navy, but got turned down. The shipyards and pits were closing and Nissan hadn't arrived. The quese for the Youth Unemployment Office stretched a quarter of a mile, and there were levels of poverty that were third-world in some parts of the town. Kevin - what is Harold Street like now? In 1969 it was hellish.
Such kids are now called NEETs in government circles - Not in Education, Employment or Training. Partly it is a result of the loss of primary sector jobs - not everyone can get, or wants, 5 'good' GCSEs - and partly a collapse in morale amongst many working-class kids and those from some ethnic minority groups.
What to do with them is a real problem. Many are from inadequate homes with very weak support networks apart from their peer group, and have little personal resource to call upon. Schemes such as the sailing project are an attempt to build up that level of personal resource. Which is why, when we see such a thing, instead of just another knee-jerk reaction we might actually think about what it is setting out to do.
But, of course, that means setting aside cynicism and prejudice, which is just as much a handicap as the impoverished lives of so many of these youths.
Its not much use going to UNI either these days. I spent years telling my son that he needed to go to Uni to get a decent job, then changed my mind as he approached 18. Theres a Joke that sums it up:
Q: Whats the first thing a student with a Degree in Tourism says to you?
A: Do you want fries with that ?
The problem is that in its quest to squeeze the last red cent out of the population and all its businesses and organisations, the government has attempted to turn Unis into businesses, which is self evidently rubbish to start off with.
Uni's used to teach forms of knowledge that were good for the country, but not necessarily easy to do, like Pure Maths, Physics and Chemistry. Thus the standard of person doing such courses was high, because these subjects are difficult. Then the government said "You have to raise your own funding now by charging for courses and make a profit"
This fundamentally changed the name of the game. Now, the object of the exercise is to attract as much money as you can, not turn out the smartest kids.
How do Uni's do this? They have invented useless courses like Degrees in Tourism and BSc in Folklore and Mythology (both real). These courses ahve been made deliberately easy to pass, because they then attract the big money, which is foreign students. Courses are now dumbed down to cater for overseas students, because theirs no money in local students. I mean, what the hell use is a degree in Folklore, or tourism?
We need to turn out engineers, mathematicians, chemists, biologists and geneticists, these are the people who create wealth for a country, not people who can tell you who Gandalfs third cousin was, or where the best place to have a holiday is.
The english HE system is a sad reflection of what happens when you get overly political interference in Education.
