Some news on today's BBC Radio 4 is interesting. One of the three or four large mobile phone firms in England, Phones-for-you, are proposing to offer six hours of work a week to 14/15 year-old children as salespersons. From their point of view this is a brilliant idea because it is this age group that buys mobiles more than any other. Phones-for-you are proposing to pay at �3 per hour (cf the statutory minimum wage for adults at around �4-25 per hour) plus commission. There has been instant opposition from the teaching unions who say that these children ought to be spending this amount of time on their studies!
This may seem a trivial piece of news but this may be significant within the world of state-education, training and employment. I've long felt that the whole process of education has become far too long and tedious for most young people. In effect, the way that the school leaving age has been steadily raised in developed countries and also the increasing scourge of excessive credentialism are modern form of job protectionism by adults rather similar to the medieval rules by which a master craftsman was not allowed to have more than one apprentice. ---- Some FWers may wonder why I so frequently criticise the English state-education system. I don't do so because I'm anti-English but because, looking around at most developed countries, it seems to me that the English state-education system is much further along the path to breakdown than any others. (In America, more developed than other countries, their education system ought to be further along the path to breakdown, but theirs is moderated by a slight degree of freedom in that each State has more much control over their own schools than local authorities do in England. The English system is highly centralised, pretty well every detail of policy and methods in the schools being directed from London.) I'll briefly mention another (more important) straw in the wind. Two months ago, the Education Minister was repeating the usual governmental spin that there was no undue shortage of teachers in the schools -- no more than "about a thousand or so". A couple of days ago, after an independent report, she had to admit that we are something like 23,000 teachers short. (About 40% of trainee-teachers drop out during, or at the end of, teacher-training, and a further 40% of new teachers drop out from teaching within three years of starting teaching. Sad statistics!) I give the English state-education system no more than another five years before it is in such chaos that the government, of whatever persuasion, will be forced to adopt a policy of education vouchers. Keith Hudson ___________________________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org> 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
