Brilliant ideas pt. 94
The whole point of carrot and stick diplomacy is that as well as feeding those you are trying to persuade, you have to be prepared to potentially give them a few taps in order to steer them towards the right decision. Generally, even if the carrots aren't working, you're not meant to then whack the person so hard that you fracture their skull. Alan Johnson hasn't apparently learned this lesson. On the face of it, his proposals for extending the school leaving age to 18 are at least worth considering. There are many teenagers who leave school at 16 with few if any qualifications who then spend the next few years of their lives in the cycle of employment in poor-paying unrewarding jobs, going on and off job-seekers allowance when they either get bored or when the work dries up, where further training and education would be a far better option.
However, that's about as far as it goes. For although Alan Johnson accepts that only a "hardcore" would be likely to not go along with his plans, he's already putting into place far-reaching sanctions for those who petulantly decide that school no longer has anything to offer them:
The government wants to introduce “education Asbos” and fixed penalty fines for teenagers who refuse to stay in education or training until the age of 18, the education secretary, Alan Johnson, announced today. A teenager who persistently refuses to follow an education or training path would be issued with an attendance order, similar to an antisocial behaviour order, or Asbo, compelling them to attend a specific training or education programme.If an order is broken, the teenager would face a criminal prosecution that could end in a £50 fine or community sentence.
To say this is a bit harsh would be akin to suggesting that Little Britain is a bit unfunny. This wouldn't only apply to those who are simply leaving education, but also to those who already have jobs in family businesses, as well as teenage mothers, who would have to spend at least 16 hours a week in either education or training.
Many would additionally argue that once someone has reached 16 it might already be too late. The whole reason why so many become disillusioned with education during their GCSE years is that they feel what they're learning is going to be little help in the wider world, or that they're being taught to the exam. The Tomlinson report on secondary education may well have been the solution to this: it would have combined the vocational education which many currently miss out on with the more academic education which currently holds out. The biggest change in recent years is that the bog-standard or close to failing comprehensives have started to split the year groups into the brighter, academic sets which take the GCSEs, while those with the poorer SAT results go on to do GNVQs, which count for a number of GCSEs, but which few employers recognize as such. It means that their results therefore look better than they actually are.
This was the situation when I was in the sixth-form. A number of our teachers regularly complained, or even despaired at the behaviour of some of their classes of 14 or 15-year-olds, realising they were fighting a lost cause when they had already turned off. At 16 currently, a lot of those who disrupt lessons or who don't want to learn leave, with those staying on often coming out of their shells as a result. Johnson's reforms potentially mean that this situation carries on for a further two years for no real purpose, when the changes have to be made at 14 rather than 16. Johnson himself argues:
"There is a risk that it is those young people with lower aspirations, who perhaps come from families and communities that have themselves had a poor experience of schooling, who miss out as participation increases. Within this group are often the young people who would have most to gain from longer participation and higher attainment. We cannot allow the most disadvantaged to miss out."
He may have a point, as some at 16, having realised that they should have studied harder during their GCSEs are faced with few enticing options other than going back to the classroom. Whether dropping the current education maintenance allowance, which rewards those from low income families with £10-£30 a week for staying on is a good idea when these are the exact young people he's hoping to help the most seems to sum up the contradictory nature of Johnson's plans, and as Not Saussure notes, New Labour itself. It provides all these carrots, then it knocks your head off just in case.
Labels: Alan Johnson, carrots and sticks, compulsory education
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