The Lost Generation

Fergus Pickering

I think education is very overrated. Got a problem? More education. Riots in the streets. More education? I think, like Lady Bracknell, that there is far too much education about. What we want is more beer and sport. Or bread and circuses, if you want to be classical. What on earth would Wayne Rooney have wanted more education for? Education makes people discontented with their lot, like the hooded chaps breaking windows and setting fire to buildings last week. Another damn square book, Mr Gibbon? As for Blanchflower, he's been wittering on like this for ever and ANYTHING PollyToynbee says must be rubbish. It's a rule. Didn't you know?

Alf Tupper

To call it an analysis is a bit too grand surely?

Blanchflower merely states the figures for school leavers and the likelihood of their finding work.
From these disheartening facts he moves then - as you suggest Martin - to propose an ill-fated 'solution'.

"He wants them KEPT in education"? Massively off beam. Has this man witnessed the disaffection levels in classrooms at present? Forcing people to learn has never worked.

He further suggests that we lower the bar for Uni' entry even further, thus demeaning the status of Higher Education.

FE colleges and apprenticeships to "keep as many as possible out of the labour market". This reveals the hand to mouth level at which his thinking is taking place.

Toynbee laps up the lot of it of course. Her rousing end paragraph stresses the need to go in behind Blanchflower full weight: "it's no use announcing some piffling sum and pretending it will do." I agree with her there, but I think such an action would be far preferable than annoucing yet another massive knee-jerk payout which common sense knows will not provide even the short term solution sought.

mac

"I always get it in the neck here when I quote Polly Toynbee".

But, it must be said, nowhere near as much as Toynbee's articles are deservedly and repeatedly lambasted by CIF commenters in the Grauniad itself. And the criticism's easily explained - her sniffy pontification and the nostrums she spouts are risible, while any accompanying figures she produces are guaranteed to be full of holes.

Whatever the merits of Professor Blanchflower's case, this inept government couldn't make it work in practice; the Brownian staple recipe of hollow rhetoric and eye-watering amounts of public cash demonstrably doesn't work - witness in this respect Gordon's expensive and undersubscribed apprenticeship scheme and the embarrassment of the underfunded LSC.

Hawkeye

Martin Bright said: "I always get it in the neck here when I quote Polly Toynbee"
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What do you expect? You post the rantings of a champagne socialist who seems to be completely disconnected from the world the rest of us live in and you wonder why you get lambasted?
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Even if you post your most delusional ravings here - they will still make ten times more sense than Toynbee's drivel.
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"I think Blanchflower is right in his analysis, but think his solution is a cop-out. Simply shovelling the potentially unemployed into more education is probably not the answer and certainly not the only one."
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For once Martin, we are in total agreement. This strikes me as a "keep the unemployment figures down" manoeuver.

Forlornehope

A more useful scheme would train young people in the craft skills that we need and don't have. A programme that produced plenty of plumbers, plasterers, electricians, mechanics, carpenters etc. Would do two things. If you have ever worked with really skilled tradesmen you will know that they are among the most well balanced and responsible of people. Good craft training is one of the best educations that mankind has ever invented. But not only does it educate in the widest sense, it gives people the ability to provide for themselves in a way that benefits everyone. Forget the schools, get them into workshops.

Tobias

D Blanchflower is clearly a talented man.

Not only did he captain Spurs to double in 1961, he has now come back from dead to predict the

[all together now]

Worst recession since the 1930s.

Dr Soc

IT seems to me that perhaps we should be teaching the less affluent how to build their enterprise upon white collar crime and tax fraud and exploiting socially harmful niches that are not yet illegal.

For example it was exposed last week - for the first time - on a blog how Branson founded his Virgin Empire on purchase Tax fraud two years before what he claims is the only time he strayed:

http://bentsocietyblog.blogspot.com/

mac

From the DWP website: "In 2007-08 benefit thieves stole an estimated £800 million from public funds, that's why we are determined to catch them."

It seems that many amongst "the less affluent" don't require much teaching, Dr Soc.

De Rigueur

Forlornehope is right chaps. Turn 'em into plumbers and electricians. Then we could export their skills to the third world.
The other alternative would be to recruit them into the army and also export their skills.
My bet is the sensible ones will save up and go to Australia.

elixelx

I taught ESOL at Hackney Community College's campus at London Fields Triangle Campus for years.
The Campus used to be a veritable production line for plumbers, electricians, masons, plasterers, all the home-building SKILLS, backed up by the City and Guilds Certification...
By 1995 this was ending...there was not enough money for both ESOL and C&G...one had to go! The workshops rotted while £3million was spent on renovating other rooms to accomodate and facilitate ACADEMIC learning!
NOW try getting a non-cowboy plumber or electrician in Hackney!
"We taught them to read, and now they ONLY read "Das Kapital and Mein Kampf! What have we done?!" Anonymous

Forlornehope

The skill that I left out was thatchers (no pun intended); we can't get them from Poland and they're running out here. Anybody know a good one?

Rhoda Klapp

Many of us regard Toynbee as the bellwether of sensible thought. In a kind of opposite way.

Perhaps she is not aware that nowadays you need a job to be at university. You can emerge with a worthless degree and debts of £30,000 even though you had a pretty full-time job throughout. So few jobs will be saved by sending the kids to a so-called university education which in many cases has no relation to what it was when Polly went, when the grant was enough to get through if you lived frugally.

Donna Gardier

To Forlornehope @ 2.56:

Couldn't agree more.