If you've got kids, emigrate - now

[tokyojoe]

I know this shitheap of a country gets worse every day, but this takes the fucking biscuit.

 

They might has well fit 'em with remote controls like a TV set.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6511990,00.html

[Strontium]

It staggers me that people protest en masse for relatively trivial things like the Poll tax and Iraq War, but something as fundamentally threatening as this gets nearly no response at all.

 

Originally I thought you were talking about this story:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6479507.stm

 

They want to force people to stay in education until they are 18 too!

[Stu Monty]

It staggers me that people protest en masse for relatively trivial things like the Poll tax and Iraq War, but something as fundamentally threatening as this gets nearly no response at all.

 

Originally I thought you were talking about this story:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6479507.stm

 

They want to force people to stay in education until they are 18 too!

 

Can I ask why that is so radically different to making them stay till they are 16?

[Paul]

We absolutely should get young people to stay in education until they're 18. Much of it could and should be work-related, though, and should be accessible from the age of 14 for some children.

[Strontium]

Can I ask why that is so radically different to making them stay till they are 16?

 

Because after 16 they're unquestionably adults, and surely it's up to an adult what they do with their lives?

 

Or to take another tack: do you honestly think criminalising 16 year olds who don't want further education is a good idea?

 

Alan Johnson says this measure is because too many people are leaving school without GCSEs. Surely the solution to that is to help more young people achieve GCSE's, and not to trap young adults, who have a right to make their own money and choices, into a further two years of a failing education system.

 

This idea is just so wrong and fundamentally illiberal, I can't even begin to think what crazy cocktail of drugs the person who dreamt it up was on at the time, or how it wasn't aborted long before it got to the 'serious consideration' stage.

 

 

We absolutely should get young people to stay in education until they're 18. Much of it could and should be work-related, though, and should be accessible from the age of 14 for some children.

Absolutely we should encourage people to get more education, and make it more diverse/vocational for those whose talents are not so obviously academic, but making criminals out of our young people strikes me as a terrifically bad thing to do.

[Karl_b]

Because after 16 they're unquestionably adults, and surely it's up to an adult what they do with their lives?

 

Or to take another tack: do you honestly think criminalising 16 year olds who don't want further education is a good idea?

 

Alan Johnson says this measure is because too many people are leaving schol without GCSEs. Surely the solution to that is to help more young people achieve GCSE's, and not to trap young adults, who have a right to make their own money and choices, into a further two years of a failing education system.

 

This idea is just so wrong and fundamentally illiberal, I can't even begin to think what crazy cocktail of drugs the person who dreamt it up was on at the time, or how it wasn't aborted long before it got to the 'serious consideration' stage.

 

As far as I'm concerened the majority of 16 year olds cannot be classed as adults.

[Paul]

Because after 16 they're unquestionably adults, and surely it's up to an adult what they do with their lives?

 

Or to take another tack: do you honestly think criminalising 16 year olds who don't want further education is a good idea?

 

Alan Johnson says this measure is because too many people are leaving schol without GCSEs. Surely the solution to that is to help more young people achieve GCSE's, and not to trap young adults, who have a right to make their own money and choices, into a further two years of a failing education system.

 

This idea is just so wrong and fundamentally illiberal, I can't even begin to think what crazy cocktail of drugs the person who dreamt it up was on at the time, or how it wasn't aborted long before it got to the 'serious consideration' stage.

 

Ha, ha, ha!!! How many 16 year olds do you know? They are really, really not adults.

[Paul]

Absolutely we should encourage people to get more education, and make it more diverse/vocational for those whose talents are not so obviously academic, but making criminals out of our young people strikes me as a terrifically bad thing to do.

 

Christ on a bike, mate, your hysteria knows no bounds.

[Strontium]

As far as I'm concerened the majority of 16 year olds cannot be classed as adults.

Any cut-off date is going to be arbitrary; some people are still children well into their 30s.

 

By 16, however, most people are well on the road to adulthood, if not actually there already, and the law reflects this.

[Brownie]

Any 16 year old worth their salt should want to stay in education as long as possible anyway.

[Strontium]

Christ on a bike, mate, your hysteria knows no bounds.

What hysteria? Did you even read the article? The first fucking paragraph:

 

Teenagers who drop out of school at 16 and refuse any further education will face fines or prosecution under new plans to raise the leaving age.

 

Recounting a fact is not "being hysterical".

 

Oh, and I suppose the teaching unions are being hysterical too?

 

 

Any 16 year old worth their salt should want to stay in education as long as possible anyway.

Well, I would tend to agree that what they actually want should be the overwhelming consideration here.

[Paul]

What hysteria? Did you even tread the article? The first fucking paragraph:

 

Teenagers who drop out of school at 16 and refuse any further education will face fines or prosecution under new plans to raise the leaving age.

 

Recounting a fact is not "being hysterical".

 

Wind your neck in, eh? I won't be playing your rabid debating game. I just find it amusing that you're constantly berating everything this government does, telling us we shouldn't trust them and that they're obsessed with the soundbite and then you go off on one about a part of it which in all practical senses is unworkable and quite clearly headline-generating gibberish. We also have a system of fines and jail terms for the parents of non-attending children. Do you know how often they get used?

[Dirk]

I'd have been prosecuted if this law was about when I was younger. In retrospect, I was really ill but I hadn't been picked up by the mental health services at the time. Even so, I'd have gone to jail or been fined. That's madder than me being mad.

[Paul]

The teaching unions fundamentally fucked education in this country and allowed it to become the political football it is today. The twats of the 1970s spent all their time arguing with each other and dividing our voice, rather than focusing on their professionalism and setting the agenda. If we teachers had a professional body as strong as the BMA, for example, we wouldn't have seen half the Mickey Mouse crap thrown at schools that has proliferated over the last two decades.

[Dirk]

I've said this frequently, I want out of this country. Twenty percent of the world's CCTV, attacks on liberty and the rights of the individual, placing the burden of proof onto the accused, moving from innocent till proven guilty toward guilty until proven innocent. This country is moving in a sinister direction and luckily enough, I will be qualified enough to leave and seek employment abroad.

[Strontium]

Wind your neck in, eh? I won't be playing your rabid debating game.

....

 

Just because I disagree with you and your Big Brother Soviet-style beliefs :whistle:, does not give you the right to call my debating style "rabid".

 

Yes, I use bad language, I swear, too fucking right I do. That's just me. This doesn't stop my points from being lucid, well-argued, grounded in fact and rooted in an easy-to-understand liberal philosophy.

 

I just find it amusing that you're constantly berating everything this government does, telling us we shouldn't trust them and that they're obsessed with the soundbite and then you go off on one about a part of it which in all practical senses is unworkable and quite clearly headline-generating gibberish. We also have a system of fines and jail terms for the parents of non-attending children. Do you know how often they get used?

Firstly, I don't disagree with everything this government does, just a lot of it, and I'm hardly alone there, given that most adults in this country didn't actually vote for them (yay first past the post voting :whatever:).

 

Secondly, the fact that the law is in place and can be used is the important thing, not whether it actually is used or not. It's nothing short of disgusting that someone who doesn't want to go to school past the age of 16 should be forced to do so against their will. It's a bad idea on so many levels.

[Strontium]

I've said this frequently, I want out of this country. Twenty percent of the world's CCTV, attacks on liberty and the rights of the individual, placing the burden of proof onto the accused, moving from innocent till proven guilty toward guilty until proven innocent. This country is moving in a sinister direction and luckily enough, I will be qualified enough to leave and seek employment abroad.

 

Well, I know I'm on your ignore list Dirk (as you don't tire of reminding me) but if you do actually read this, I agree with every sentiment you expressed in that post.

 

Thank goodness there are people who are awake to the reality that this country is sliding towards authoritarianism faster than you can say V For Vendetta.

[Section_31]

I personally think the entire further education/higher education system in this country needs sorting out.

 

My mate is high-up in my old college (he was my teacher about ten years back) and said the atmosphere there now is completely different due to the fact the government pays people to go into further education, more often than not now the students aren't there because they're ready to take their next step on the ladder and to try and mature, but because there's 40 quid a week in it for them and they get to f*ck around.

 

The minute something becomes purely about being pushed into something and not about furthering yourself I think you dilute what further education is all about. IMO its about choice, not about being pushed prodded and bribed along a road you don't even want to walk down (yet).

 

My Uni changed considerably as well, I was in the first 'batch' of students who started when tuition fees had been introduced and was told by the staff that the place was now completely differant as the Uni had effectively enacted an open-door policy to try and make an extra few quid, gone was the small common room and small class-sizes of interested students and in came a clearing-fest, the uni population increassed by 500% in those two years and was rife with allot of people who basically (a) weren't capable, and (b) weren't really arsed.

 

To cope with the fact many people who are pushed and prodded onto these courses aren't capable or inclined, the courses are adapted to help them along too, the myriad of vocational courses which lead nowhere (as my cousin will attest from his HNC in computer studies) and if you look in the Edge Hill University prospectus you'll see they run a six week fast track 'pre-degree' course for people with no A-levels to get into Uni, where courses such as BA (Hons) in 'Event Planning' await them.

 

I'd also say as a result of this, higher and further education aren't valued by big business as much as they may have been 10-15 years ago, hence the obsession with Psychometric testing, role playing, even basic Maths and English testing at interviews.

 

We need to change the culture of learning in this country not force people into things they're not capable of or not interested in.

[Nunavut Patrick]

I've said this frequently, I want out of this country. Twenty percent of the world's CCTV, attacks on liberty and the rights of the individual, placing the burden of proof onto the accused, moving from innocent till proven guilty toward guilty until proven innocent. This country is moving in a sinister direction and luckily enough, I will be qualified enough to leave and seek employment abroad.

 

As long as you aren't a nutter anymore you're welcome at my igloo. Just bring a couple crates of Heineken and a selection off The Wine thread and I'll sponsor you.

[Dirk]

As long as you aren't a nutter anymore you're welcome at my igloo. Just bring a couple crates of Heineken and a selection off The Wine thread and I'll sponsor you.

 

Did you got to AA too?

[Dirk]

NP, I have a choice of watching the Penns game tonight or the Habs and Rangers, which one do you think is going to be best?

[Nunavut Patrick]

Actually, in all seriuosness, these types of policies are the policies of a government in power to long and is now playing God.

 

You'll all hate me for this, but 4 years of Tory rule would do Britain good. Most of the damage the Tories did was in their last years, was it not? Remember I'm not tuned in to British politics but here in Canada we had the Liberal Party in power for three terms and they ended up more corrupt than Juventus and Milan put together.

[Dirk]

Actually, in all seriuosness, these types of policies are the policies of a government in power to long and is now playing God.

 

You'll all hate me for this, but 4 years of Tory rule would do Britain good. Most of the damage the Tories did was in their last years, was it not? Remember I'm not tuned in to British politics but here in Canada we had the Liberal Party in power for three terms and they ended up more corrupt than Juventus and Milan put together.

 

It's not just a British problem, though. http://www.i-cams.org/ICAMS1.pdf

[Nunavut Patrick]

NP, I have a choice of watching the Penns game tonight or the Habs and Rangers, which one do you think is going to be best?

 

Habs have to win as the Rangers have pulled away from the pack of teams chasing the playoff spots.

 

I'd go for the Pens game because they have an exciting team with Staal, Crosby, Malkin etc. It's always good hockey. I'll be watching Leafs vs Hurricanes.

 

The dream Conference Final for me would be Pittsburgh-Buffalo- fast and talent galore.

[Nunavut Patrick]

Did you got to AA too?

 

Nah, I went once to a meeting aboot 15 years ago after a particulary bad week-long tear but realized it wasn't for me. Full credit to those who have managed to stay sober because it must be hard for some. Temptation is a terrible thing. Icould never give up my Heineken and single malt but I do regulate it as it's a fine line between social drinking and problem drinking.

 

I'm also lucky that I don't turn into an asshole after a few drinks.