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.Education Secretary Alan Johnson said that by 2015, all youngsters in England would have to be in school or some form of training until their 18th birthday.
Now, of course, any initiative that encourages or extends access to education, is to be welcomed.
But let us remember who we are talking about here. These so called drop-outs have been in education for eleven or so years by this time.
If, in that time, all the system has done is to get them to a point where they cannot wait to leave, does Alan Johnson really think that forcing them into two more years is suddenly going to turn them around?
Of course, this is not the only time that this approach has been proposed. In the '90s a Modern Foreign Language was made a compulsory subject at KS4. It was hoped that the government had admitted the failure of this tactic when they announced the reversal of the policy three years ago. But no, the latest idea dreamt up in Lord Dearing's bath is to force seven-year-olds to study them.
Why, oh why, do they never ask "why?"
Why do pupils want to leave school at 16? Why do pupils not wish to learn French or Spanish or...?
Why do girls not like Physics?
Because it is not just Blair's government. Going back further, before science was compulsory at what we now call key stage 4, there was an abysmal take up of the physical sciences by girls. Rather than asking why girls disliked the subject, the "answer" was to force all pupils to take it to sixteen.
There are two reasons why governments take this approach.
First, there is the "something must be done...this is something...let's do this" approach. At least they look busy!
Second, is that if they actually asked why things weren't working, they might get an uncomfortable answer; and then they might really have to do something.
education school alan+johnson teaching blair school+leaving+age
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