To most of the original question: good points. However we want something added to the school curriculum, we have to also remove something. There's only so many hours in the school day. Insist on 3/5 of school time to be on literacy and numeracy for 5 -11 year olds and all other subjects fight for the remnant.

To paraphrase your point, Damo, we need to reflect more on do we want our chidren educated or trained at 16 (I realise it is not a sharp distinction).

As for your last point: "So why does the government keep insisting on funding the likes of A4e and other providers?" Simple : privatisation.

Excellently put.

Then why not extend that day? Even if it is just for the last couple of years of high school?
It comes as a huge shock to many kids that they may have to work till 5:30pm and/or start before 9am.

What? Extend the school day? Who'd teach 'em?

A typical school day used to be: 09.00 start 'til 12.00n then dinnertime 'til 1.30pm then lessons 'til 4.00pm with a break in the morning and afternoon. More often than not teachers would then be engaged in extra-curricular activities on evenings and weekends. Our rugby coach was also our maths teacher, simply because all the PE teachers knew buggerall about Rugby League. The head of maths used to run after-school courses for anyone interested in the subject or who possibly needed more coaching. Many of the teachers were also involved in the youth club too. In fact it was quite possible for anyone to extend their school day until 6.00pm then go on to the youth club.

What happened?

Cod'ead: I taught for 27 years and remember only too well that every hour in the classroom meant an hour at least outside it. Oh, I ran Rugby teams as well.

What a number of commentators forget is what many of us learned by hard experience: for many parents (and many politicians) we cared for the children so they were not on the street. Juveniles are by nature volatile and so keeping them where they could also be taught was a safer option.
Also learning is tiring. Simple

(Now we have after-school clubs and pre-school clubs so lone parents can search for work once the child is 5: not to inmprove education.)

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7234578.stmSome interesting stuff here – not least about the history of starting children early in school, and the amount of time British children actually spend with their families.[/url

The question was, in part at least, rhetorical mate. Now I know this will attract the usual opprobrium from her disciples but I blame Thatcher and her attacks on teachers and the decimation of school playing fields and facilities. That probably did more to demotivate teachers than anything else.

I think you can look back now and see that it wasn't just the attacks on teachers: we have had 30 years of attacks on anyone working in the public sector – something that has been absolute grist to the mill for swathes of the country's newspapers.

Those in the public services are lazy, unskilled – so these jobs are really just a form of benefits – surly, rude, incompetent, corrupt and so on and so forth. Some, not realising the idiocy of their comments, espouse a view that the public sector isn't even 'the real world'.

It's been a useful myth to spread when you also wanted to spread the lie that private is always better than public.

What we are starting to see now – from G4S to A4e, Locog to Close Protection UK, Tesco to Poundstretcher, Barclays to HSBC, Southern Cross to Winterbourne View, [iNews of the World[/i to the [iDaily Mail[/i – is an indicator of just how some of the private sector behaves, is allowed to behave and has been encouraged to behave, by deregulation, the promotion of a greed-is-good culture, the demonisation of the poor and the unemployed, and three decades of constant attacks on the public sector, amongst other things.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of all is that some people were (and are) so very keen to lap it all up; vicariously sticking their snouts into a trough of utter nastiness and inhumanity.

I think we need a smaller and more appropriate curriculum that allows teachers flexibility. I feel sorry for kids today I really do. We prescribe a massive curriculum, a lot of which is irrelevant to their lives, force them to sit down and basically memorise or simply copy what is being "taught" for hours every day, send them home with hours of homework, tell them off for being bored out of their skulls, set them exams, when they pass them we tell them theyre thick and the only reason they passed is because it's easy, send them off to university, then tell them their degrees are worthless, tell them to get a job, then if they get one we tell them they're no good in that job and they can't read, write or add up.
Then we wonder why some get p|ssed off and don't bother with school.

I think we maybe need a less broad curriculum (but possibly going deeper into some subject areas), a smaller curriculum to allow teachers time to do different things or allow more time for trips, events etc outside of school, and most importantly it needs to be far more relevant.

As for work, well the number of jobs available is always the biggest factor, but that's going to fluctuate. As mentioned on other threads, we need employers to go back to taking a long term view and to train employees on the job, not expect a 16 year old to immediately and miraculously have all the skills necessary.

Now [url=http://www.w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=35599this[/url really is taking the pi[is[/is

Not just your ordinary intern's "job", no sir. If you decide to apply for this baby, [url=http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/07/18/think-tank-in-city-wants-to-be-paid-for-a-job/you are expected to pay Civitatis for the privilege of working there[/url. £450 a month if you're a UK citizen, £750 a month if not. This is on top of living expenses etc. How this gets on to the W4MP ebsite is beyond me

You see, this is what I was talking about earlier - within a couple of decades we've gone from a position where employers EXPECTED to have to train young people via on-the-job experience or college courses (paid for by the employer), to a position where young people are EXPECTED to pay for their JOBS.

Expanding the principle slightly its probably not as stupid as it sounds as hundreds of thousands of 18 year olds will this year embark on three year university courses that will cost them a minimum of £9000 per year in the hope that at some point in the far distant future they will recoup that money (which most will have to borrow at an interest) through better employment, the evidence for which remains to be seen.