But then along comes something new which tells me they can still get worse.
285,000 Leave school without achieving C or better in Math and English at GCSE. Government
to make them retake exams. The government have announced that those who fail to achieve
these grades will be made to retake them until they pass.
Wait a minute.
We keep hearing about schools that are making students sit exams again and again and again
so they can pick the best result for the school league tables. This is rightly condemned.
So how is it now OK for the government to do it?
If the education system as it stands cannot teach our young men and women well enough to
achieve a C grade at GCSE after ten years in school then what will another year or two achieve
other than to keep them off the unemployment statistics.
How about asking a very important question.
WHY are 285,000 children, that is Two Hundred and Eighty Five Thousand Children, leaving
school without a minimum of a C in Math and English. Think about that number. That is
enough people to fill Wembley three times over or just about enough to fill the five largest
stadiums in the UK.
How are these young men and women, no more than boys and girls really, how are they being
failed so badly by our education system.
How is it that they are being dumped into adult life utterly incapable of getting or keeping a job
more advanced that sweeping the floors? If you cannot even manage basic math then even shelf
stacking can be out. If you cannot read or write to a mimimum then 90% of all jobs are beyond your
reach.
How has our education system reached the point where we are deliberately creating Unemployable
people.
I have posted on this before, about the fact that we are no longer working class or middle class or
upper class but instead we are Unemployable, Employable and Independently Wealthy. With so
many people all but Unemployable now how is it that we are simply adding people straight into their
new social class at 16.
These are people who have little to no chance of ever getting a job. They are the next generation of
people who will live their entire lives on benefits, many will have parents who have never worked,
they will have no aspirations, no desire to better themselves and thanks to our current school system
even if they wanted to achieve something in life they will have very little chance of succeeding.
They are entering adult life with little or no connection to the society around them. They will be
unemployed and demonised by the government that is directly responsible for making them
unemployable in the first case.
But you say many of these children will be from Immigrant families and have English as a
second Language.
So what. These are 16 to 19 year olds. A tiny handful may have just arrived in the country but the vast
majority will have been in BRITISH schools for several years at least. If they cannot speak English
to the point where they cannot get a C grade in the lowest and easiest exam in that subject then what
hope do they have of doing much in this country.
It doesn’t matter if a child is from an Immigrant family or a British family or from the Moon. The
language in this country is English. If you cannot speak it, if you cannot read or write to even the
low standard needed then you are going to be extremely limited in what you can do. You become
isolated and can only deal with people from a community where they speak your native language.
That is how ghettos form.
It should not be possible to leave a British school at 16 without a minimum of ENGLISH.
But you say, who needs Math these days, buy a calculator.
Computers, calculators, smart phones. These enhance human capabilities. They should not be
used to replace them. Without basic math you have no way of knowing that the result your
calculator gives you is even remotely correct.
What about times when you have no calculator. What employer is going to consider a young
man or woman for continued employment when they cannot even manage a simple task with out
a calculator?
Our entire lives are about numbers. Math is used every day in hundreds of ways.
If they cannot handle Math to the point where they cannot get a C grade in the lowest and easiest
exam in that subject then what hope do they have of doing much in this country.
89% of those who leave school without these minimum grades have not have achieved them by
the age of 19!
This to me says that a quarter of a million young men and women this year are unlikely to ever
achieve those grades.
A quarter of a million young men and women, facing their entire lives ahead of them and already
condemned to the employment trash heap.
A quarter of a million young men and women fit only to sign on and waste the rest of their lives on
state handouts.
A quarter of a million young men and women this year, a quarter of a million young men and women
last year, a quarter of a million young men and women from the year before that.
In my opinion schools teach you a number of things. Maths and English are important because these
are the foundations of everything you will ever do, work or leisure. Developing a career or even
finding out what is happening in the world around you.
But the most Important thing that you should learn in school and during your teenage years is
“How To Learn”.
No 16 year old or 18 year old or 20 year old has any idea what the future holds. No one at that age
can see where the winding path of their life will lead.
If they have not been taught how to learn something new by the time they reach the end of their
teens then it is highly unlikely they will be able to learn a new career, new skills or even a hobby to
enrich their lives later in life.
If we cannot teach these young people even a Grade C in the life foundation skills of Math and English
then there is basically no chance that we will ever be able to teach them anything in later life.
With all the science, the technology and the experience in education that the UK has in the 21st
Century how is it that we are mass producing young people with no hope or prospects?