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Our education system is failing young people

I was listening to Barry Humphries on Desert Island Discs last week, and was greatly impressed with his life story. When he mentioned education, I cast my mind back to the late fifties, when I was at school. Only now do recognise the high standards in all areas that I was fortunate enough to achieve, and how moral my education in a state grammar school had been.

Those days of school bliss have long since gone, and I am greatly disappointed in the achievements of the government educational systems of today. Our once great nation can no longer be proud of its attainments in the educational sphere, and the entire process of education has been so watered down as to be failing our young people. I blame the examination system that is totally unable to assess the true children it is supposed to be testing. It is archaic, simplified to the extreme, and actually quite meaningless. Knowledge is absolutely no use at all unless it becomes part of the human organism. Learning to pass an examination is a waste of time!

Just before I sat down to write this blog, my doorbell rang. The door was open and I shouted to the bell ringer to enter. A northern accent responded in a rather nervous and startled manner, so I rose from my easy chair, took a few steps towards the door, and saw a young man, shaven headed and rather blank-faced, with his eyes set down deep in the dark sockets of his head. He was holding an identification card, and declared that he was on prison release. It became immediately clear that here was a poor fellow, ready for my ‘never before received’ spiel! He had become the victim of our modern society, drugs, alcohol, fags, sex and violence. He said he had two beautiful young daughters, and he said they meant the world to him. He also said he could not read or write. I asked him what he wanted and he said he was on a government release scheme and had to prove himself, as part of the programme. After listening to his story, I was gently fuming, and deeply upset.

Many young people are let down by our society, and in particular the education system, designed by ministers who haven’t got the faintest idea about childhood, what human real achievement and uprightness really mean, in the modern world? After parting with a few chosen expletives, I wished him well and he left, respectful, a little tearful, and dragged himself onto the main road. He paused as a passing car hooted at him, aggressively, turned towards me and said, with full conviction ‘You should be a politician’! Perhaps I am?

So many young people with great potential, once babes in arms, lose their way in an unguided and un-centred society. There seems to be little hope for so many……

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