|Cheers Tel..Looks like it is a bit of a red herring story, although I still find it shocking that our youth are being burdened with debt from a young age..
So do these sandwich years for Uni brats take away the chance of mon schooly types getting an apprenticeship? I expect so.
I got told military service looks great on a CV. I've never struggled for employment after leaving the forces but I generally talk my way into anything so maybe it's a bit of both. My mouth is my best asset in business (go on cheap joke for somebody there).
It obviously carries something military service. Even if I was a total dickhead whilst serving... Still am.
How do the ex servicemen with physical and mental disabilities get on? Just realised I didn't stipulate earlier.
I don't know any mate. Lots of them get **** on mate, discarded like ****. Others I would imagine get decent support on the outside - probably the officers.
I know of one who has half a leg. Well plus the placka bit (or whatever he has these days) He does well. Very well. His ex missus left him with a kid. Manager of a very large shopping centre in the south (one of the biggest in the uk) and also a trainer in the last paraolympics for certain athletes. Now how could i make that up? I didnt.
You sense wrong as per. I was confused as to why you were defensive in the first place like maybe you assumed I was going to disbelieve you before even posting your reply. Strange thing to do. Why would I ask your opinion if I wasn't going to believe it? Would be complete waste of time.
Well I'm a qualified solicitor who now teaches instead. Certainly couldn't have done either job without further studies. There are aspects of law you could teach someone on the job and i worked with many legal execs and paralegals who were fantastic at what they did (better than most solicitors as they specialised in a smaller area they knew very well) but if someone was on the edge of their knowledge they would struggle as they hadn't learned the wider context of how things worked. Some areas of work you need to know how to do things and how they work, other aspects of work you need to understand why they work - especially in areas which change constantly. My wife is a doctor and if she simply knew what to do and had no understanding why then I suspect she'd kill off her patients pretty sharp. The student loans thing is patently unfair. 18-30's don't vote so are ripe for shafting, the government can - and will - bring in whatever measures they can for 50+ demographic because they actually vote (more credit to them for it) and make savings in lower demographics. You need a degree for more jobs now than you used to (my father worked in management from the ground up, started at 17 and ended up as a director - back then you could but now you hit a glass ceiling and will get usurped by graduates) rightly or wrongly. As someone who works with teenagers I can assure you apprenticeships are pushed but - and here's the rub - schools are measured almost solely on league tables nowadays and funding (and teachers performance management and jobs) is directly affected by this. You advise a pupil to do what is best for them but also know that if they leave the school to do something else you are taking a financial hit - there are currently around 30-40% of schools in the country making redundancies of teaching staff as most are in the red (the 'ring-fencing' of the education budget is such that to the penny the budget is the same as it was 4-5 years ago, add in the living wage changes - for all support staff - and general costs increasing and you have some serious money problems). The solutions do appear simple and i don't disagree with most of what has been said but the vested interests of most of the influential people involved is to keep pupils in formal education - for many of whom it is not the correct route.
Great post Haslam. So how does the current school quota system get changed i.e. shift the performance metrics away from higher ed, to a mix of higher ed and vocational/trades apprenticeships?
I was very fortunate to get an apprenticeship at a local Sunderland branch of a large company that gave me the opportunity to get a trade in toolmaking at the same time they invested in me with 4 years of college up to HNC mechanical and then a further 3 years to get a manufacturing degree. I never got stuck with a massive student loan and always had some money in my pocket. I feel very fortunate and even though I've left that company and have now worked for another company for 10 years I owe my old company a big thanks for the base it gave me to go from.
There's a few ideas but if I was certain of a fix I suspect it would have happened by now (however much people may complain about governments ideas about education I don't accept any government would seek to actively make it worse). It is interesting how public the performance of schools is compared to apprenticeships and even many college courses - schools are far more accountable. When was the last time you heard a politician complaining about the standard of training provided by apprenticeship providers? I'm sure they vary greatly, I recall working as a kitchen porter at the Marriott Hotel in Gateshead in 2001 on £4.12 an hour and my friend got promoted to apprentice chef on pay of ... £2.12 an hour as an apprentice employment status was different and a portion of his minimum wage could be offset against the cost of his training. He was pretty much chopping vegetables and putting things in the microwave all day. At the age of 19 we were able to spot cheap labour when we saw it, felt a lot like a loop hole being exploited. Apologies in advance for the next bit, get a bit ranty and feel free to ignore it. The cut-backs have been brutal. The closer to the bone finances are the more cynical it makes everyone. Public sector is compared to private sector when it suits (teachers pay freeze for 5 of the last 7 years and a 1% pay rise for the other 2; increased pension contributions, NI, etc.) we are told to justify our performance against all other schools as if we all start on the same footing - which we don't and yet we are told that in the public sector it is our duty to share best practice (because private sector companies do that with their competitors?). 20 years ago teachers used to meet up and discuss best practice, now if your school is doing better than others in your area you're shooting yourself in the foot to do so. Statistics are cherry picked. China does better than the UK and they have longer hours so we should have longer hours (Scandinavia does better than us but have shorter hours in school). Ah but Finland have shorter holidays! Each school day there is many hours shorter, they start school at the age of 6-7 and there's pretty much no homework as a national policy. Truth is that its clearly cultural, if you prioritise Education and promote respect for teachers (and each other) advocate hard work and making the most of yourself then people do better. If you have an Education secretary and head of Ofsted who lambast teaching at every opportunity it fuels the idea that it's all about schools rather than parents or pupils - most parent see through this but for the ones you really need to affect it is a convenient excuse. Less money per pupil especially in 6th form - this forces pupils out of schools and into colleges and vocational courses. I suspect that in 10-20 years time a school 6th form will be a rare thing indeed, they are already less common than they used to be. There are positives to this, though mainly financial. Some colleges are excellent but the main differences are they have larger classes and the onus is more on the pupils to do work in their own time (which is a good thing!). The problems come in that schools are a closer community and for many pupils it can be the only stable environment they have, people mature at different rates and the pupils without a stable home-life who are desperate to leave school and get a job are often - not always by any means - the ones who are most vulnerable. Colleges are not able to offer the same pastoral environment as a school. As is always the case with statistics there's the numbers on a piece of papers versus the actual people you have in front of you. It's like when a pupil comes into school and you are told when they're 11 they should get a B at GCSE. Then over the next 5 years parents divorce, grandparents die, there's an acrimonious settlement, there's time in hospital, sometimes parents or siblings die and at the end if they get a B you are told they've just done what is expected and you've added nothing to their life (quite literally, value added is what schools are generally judged by through Ofsted and if they get the grade that was expected of them then it ranks as 0). I've had pupils who have lost both their parents and dropped a grade which I've had to answer for - like the fact they are still coming into school and having a go isn't enough in the circumstances! I love my job and am glad I dropped out of law but one of the main reasons for that switch was I was sick of being a salesman - I'm not willing to sell someone something I know they don't need. The fact my job now may hinge on selling teenagers a future I'm not convinced is correct for them sickens me.
