"Education, Education, Education"

A case of ‘never mind the quality feel the width.’ As with the NHS there is a postal code lottery with regards to the quality of schools and education that a child receives. Some schools are now holding actual lotteries to determine which pupils are to be given a place.

While A level successes increase and more pupils go on to study degrees, the variety of tertiary education opportunities available has now digressed to the point where subjects for study seem to be being invented to attract students to institutions that need to make the numbers up to justify their existence and so offer relatively pointless degrees. You can now go to university to study subjects like: Floristry and Floral Design; Football Studies; Stress Management; Embroidery; Garden Design; Refrigeration and Air Conditioning and Death and Society. Subjects which, frankly, could mostly be learnt from an apprenticeship rather than a three year course which eventually leaves the student with spiralling debt and a degree that binds them to a work field they could have joined three years earlier.

As students take more and more degrees that Industry does not want, no one bothers to ask what the economy or the nation requires so we have unemployed degree level students having wasted their time and money.

The general level of education has reached a point where the better Universities do not trust the exam results and want to set their own entry test and the Private schools have their pupils sit the International Test as opposed to the UK schools exams as they are better valued by employers and Universities.

Small and Medium sized businesses also claim that they are struggling to attract good people to work for them because too many people suffer from a combination of poor education and lack of vocational experience. (see http://www.tenongroup.com/Press/2006/Press060103.asp for a report)