Posted November 4, 200717 yr TEENAGERS who refuse to work, attend training or go to school are to be issued with on the spot fines under government proposals. Any who still fail to comply would then be taken to court where they could face further penalties. The measures are designed to enforce a new law which will be outlined in this week’s Queen’s speech. It will say that all teenagers must remain in education, training or employment until they are 18. The change will be phased in by raising the age to 17 in 2013 and to 18 in 2015. Details of the new “age of participation” will be outlined by Ed Balls, the children’s secretary, in a television interview today and in a speech tomorrow. The new law will effectively outlaw “Neets”, teenagers and young people who are “not in education, employment or training”. In a speech to the Fabian Society tomorrow, Balls will put the proportion of Neets at about 10% of 16 to 18-year-olds. On today’s Sunday Programme on GMTV, he will argue that the change is “the biggest educational reform in the last 50 years”. Balls will admit that Britain performs poorly in terms of the numbers of teenagers who drop out of the system at the age of 16. In international league tables, he will say, Britain is “pretty much at the bottom, despite the rise in participation we’ve seen . . . the vast majority of countries have more people staying on [after 16] than we do”. The first group to be affected will be today’s 10 and 11-year-olds and the change is likely to provoke strong arguments. When Brown first put it forward in July, a senior union figure, Geraldine Everett, chairman of the Professional Association of Teachers, said that the move was a “potential mine-field” that would “compel the disaffected to, in their perception, prolong the agony”. Frank Field, the Labour MP and former minister, wrote in last week’s Sunday Times that a group of teenagers in his Birkenhead constituency “rolled around laughing at the idea that any government could try to lock them up in school until they became 18”. To provide places for the teenagers, Balls will announce the creation of an extra 90,000 apprenticeships by 2013 for 16 to 18-year-olds to add to the current 150,000. There will also be 44,000 new places at further education colleges. Full article here : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/c...icle2801824.ece
November 4, 200717 yr Ridiculous Who will issue the fines ? the police presumably, the same police that should be out hunting muggers and rapists not unemployed teenagers :manson: This will just create a mountain of paperwork and waste valuable police time and resources
November 5, 200717 yr What is needed is those apprenticeships now, not in 6 years time. It was so much easier for kids to learn a trade in the past when there were so many more apprenticeships available.
November 6, 200717 yr What's the point of fining teens with no money? How does that work? About as well as the teens!
November 6, 200717 yr What's the point of fining teens with no money? How does that work? lol.. exactly what i though.... barmy.
November 6, 200717 yr This is stupid It's wasting teacher's time with students who don't wanna be at school. Wasting the goverment's money etc.
November 6, 200717 yr I think it's a good idea. The number of 16 year-olds leaving school and just getting a crappy job is scary and the number not bothering to do anything, expect sponge is also scary. At least up until 18 they'll have some extra education/training in something the potentially like doing.
November 6, 200717 yr I think it's a good idea. The number of 16 year-olds leaving school and just getting a crappy job is scary and the number not bothering to do anything, expect sponge is also scary. At least up until 18 they'll have some extra education/training in something the potentially like doing. so whos going to do the 'crappy jobs' then?... migrants?...lol the only ones that should be 'made' to stay on at school/college are the ones who havnt got a job..
November 6, 200717 yr so whos going to do the 'crappy jobs' then?... migrants?...lol the only ones that should be 'made' to stay on at school/college are the ones who havnt got a job.. Well to be fair, with the amount coming in in the next decade...why not? :lol:
November 7, 200717 yr What is needed is those apprenticeships now, not in 6 years time. It was so much easier for kids to learn a trade in the past when there were so many more apprenticeships available. Exactly, the absolute worst thing we ever did was to destroy our apprenticeship programmes which gave generations good prospects of a job, hope for the future, and probably most important of all, actual self-respect and self worth, the feeling that these youngsters were actually contributing to society.... The destruction of the apprenticeship system is yet another legacy of the Thatcher era, and the whole reason why we have serious skills shortages in this country, and a general lack of respect and discipline amongst the young, because they really have nothing to actually aspire to, if we still had a strong apprenticeship base, I doubt we'd be seeing "NEETS" on our streets, well certainly not as many.... Six years is a hell of a long time to wait for all this though, much of the troubled and troublesome youth who would benefit from this will fall through the cracks..... This is really something Nu Labor should've had up and running from the get-go in '97 when they were first elected.... They've wasted a decade already..... <_< Having these apprenticeships in place NOW would go quite a ways to actually stemming the flow of youth crime and delinquency if you ask me, if people actually have something positive to do, then they're far less likely to go out and commit crime... If you look at many of the Central and Eastern European countries, the state schools there actually maintain a good apprenticeship system where kids who aren't necessarily very academic are learning a trade instead, and they actually still have TECHNICAL COLLEGES and institutions as well.... Something that all but disappeared from our country during the Tory years... The tories came along and said to all the Tech colleges and Polys "hey, you can be universities now, aint that neat....??" Well, erm, NO, because that's what probably contributed greatly to our skills shortage. It surely cannot be coincidence that in countries where a strong apprenticeship system is in place and the less academic kids are learning trades, there is very little juvenile delinquency or crime to speak of... As far as these "fines" go... What an utter waste of police time, I mean, really.... Another pathetic "headline-grabbing" piece of PR and spin which does absolutely bugger all to actually address the problem in an effective or positive manner....
November 7, 200717 yr Exactly, the absolute worst thing we ever did was to destroy our apprenticeship programmes which gave generations good prospects of a job, hope for the future, and probably most important of all, actual self-respect and self worth, the feeling that these youngsters were actually contributing to society.... The destruction of the apprenticeship system is yet another legacy of the Thatcher era, and the whole reason why we have serious skills shortages in this country, and a general lack of respect and discipline amongst the young, because they really have nothing to actually aspire to, if we still had a strong apprenticeship base, I doubt we'd be seeing "NEETS" on our streets, well certainly not as many.... Six years is a hell of a long time to wait for all this though, much of the troubled and troublesome youth who would benefit from this will fall through the cracks..... This is really something Nu Labor should've had up and running from the get-go in '97 when they were first elected.... They've wasted a decade already..... <_< Having these apprenticeships in place NOW would go quite a ways to actually stemming the flow of youth crime and delinquency if you ask me, if people actually have something positive to do, then they're far less likely to go out and commit crime... If you look at many of the Central and Eastern European countries, the state schools there actually maintain a good apprenticeship system where kids who aren't necessarily very academic are learning a trade instead, and they actually still have TECHNICAL COLLEGES and institutions as well.... Something that all but disappeared from our country during the Tory years... The tories came along and said to all the Tech colleges and Polys "hey, you can be universities now, aint that neat....??" Well, erm, NO, because that's what probably contributed greatly to our skills shortage. It surely cannot be coincidence that in countries where a strong apprenticeship system is in place and the less academic kids are learning trades, there is very little juvenile delinquency or crime to speak of... As far as these "fines" go... What an utter waste of police time, I mean, really.... Another pathetic "headline-grabbing" piece of PR and spin which does absolutely bugger all to actually address the problem in an effective or positive manner.... apprenticeship schemes on derby city council ceased under wilson m8...
November 7, 200717 yr apprenticeship schemes on derby city council ceased under wilson m8... Yeah, but I bet you still had a technical college or poly though for city and guilds programmes and the like....
November 7, 200717 yr Yeah, but I bet you still had a technical college or poly though for city and guilds programmes and the like.... not city and guilds, that was part of the apprenticeship scheme, and im only talking for derby city council, i think rolls royce had apprenticeship schemes running but i know not how long for.
November 7, 200717 yr not city and guilds, that was part of the apprenticeship scheme, and im only talking for derby city council, i think rolls royce had apprenticeship schemes running but i know not how long for. I think my general point still stands mate, you still had something there in place in which a young person could potentially better themselves if they had no real aptitude for the academic side of things... The likes of Thatch and that other b/astard Keith Joseph just came along, wrote these kids off as being "thick", and basically consigned them to under-class status, dolies for life, amounting to nothing..... <_< Sorry, but when you beat down people like that, treat them like scum, well, you shouldn't really be all that surprised by the results should you....? I dont like NEDs or CHAVs as people, but they were created by this soul-less 'me-me-me' society that Thatch and her cronies propogated....
November 7, 200717 yr I dont like NEDs or CHAVs as people, but they were created by this soul-less 'me-me-me' society that Thatch and her cronies propogated.... really?... im pretty sure that theres always been 'that' sort of person around, call them by a different name, but theres always been scummy kids. the difference is that we are now in the 21st centuary...
November 7, 200717 yr really?... im pretty sure that theres always been 'that' sort of person around, call them by a different name, but theres always been scummy kids. the difference is that we are now in the 21st centuary... I suppose, I mean, Charles Dickens wrote a lot about the "street urchins" and child pickpockets in Victorian Britain... But, again, they were products of that society... "Victorian Values", that the Tories trumpeted about for most of the 80s...
November 8, 200717 yr If these fines are left unpaid it could really screw up their future in a bad credit rating for renting a house, electricity and phone connections etc. It seems a bit harsh for kids so young to have their futures messed up like this. Especially if they can't afford to pay the fines or if there is a legitimate but unassessed reason why they don't work/study. E.g undiagnosed mental problems, depression etc. Why don't they offer them free access to mental health/coucelling services instead of beating them with the $ stick.
November 8, 200717 yr If these fines are left unpaid it could really screw up their future in a bad credit rating for renting a house, electricity and phone connections etc. It wont have any repercussions for the kids probably, more than likely it would have repercussions for the parents.... Mind you, given the fact that some of the parents are even worse than the kids, I doubt many will have sympathy..... -_-
November 9, 200717 yr Wouldn't it better to actually HELP them find education/work? I mean when you leave school at 16 I bet 90% of kids don't know what the hell they want to do with their lives. I didn't and just went toc ollege because it seemed the logical next step. I'm 19 now and have only JUST started a course at uni in what I actually want to do. The careers advice in schools/colleges in Leicester is absolutely $h!t from my own experience. We need more apprenticeships and better options when we leave school and like someone said counselling options etc. They should put more money into things like this than wasting their time on silly rules like fining them or talks of abolishing Christmas or whatever. Edited November 9, 200717 yr by Graham
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