Skills and the School Leaving Age - 5th November 2007.

On television this morning, there has been what I would call a spokesperson for the government, saying that the school leaving age will be raised to 18, or the alternative is, that the students can do training, so as to keep up their level of skills. Or I believe if they still dont come out with any skills, then they can have vocational credit for later. I believe that is what is being said.

I dont know quite what to make of what is being said; we hear to many promises about skills and how the government proposes to improve the situation. What if students/pupils did improve their level of skills, would that really make a difference? That is what I mean, these are all buzz phrases, like "lifelong learning".

I hate to go over old ground but I have practised lifelong learning since the age of seven years of age. Since I was first big enough to fit on one of those piano stools at the Guildhall School of Music, sit at a huge Steinway grand piano and do my pianoforte grade examinations, of which I did six, between the ages of seven and eighteen. Then I came out of school, having passed 3 Certificates of Secondary Education, Five Ordinary Levels with the apposite correct grades (equivalent to more than a grade C these days) and one Advanced Level. Obviously by this time I could read and write.

What good did this do me - none, because when I was first working with the Inner London Education Authority, their argument was that I had two "O" Levels in History, so I must take their internal examination for Clerical Officers Grade 2. I did so and passed 2nd out of 117 candidates and with a score of 462 out of 700 - thats about 65% I believe. However, that was the first inclination I had that nobody in the employment world took any notice of learning, or skills. To tell someone they have not got five O Levels when they have certificates which indicate that they have got 5 O Levels is a bit short of bombastic. However the ILEA is not with us anymore, so we cant quibble with them overly.

However skills and education. Thats quite amazing. I read in the newspapers yesterday that they regarded Sir Ian Blair as not a "copper's copper" because he had been to Oxford University and had received a degree from them. Quelle dommage! Oh I see that he would not be able to be a policeman then if he's got a degree. I mean, lets not allow learning to stand in the way of "progressing up the ranks". Except of course, that a lot of officers dont progress up the ranks but stay exactly (more or less) where they are.

This is all a quite extraordinary proposition; that in this England we seem to hate so much those that have bothered to skill themselves, or educate themselves, or both, really. I often wonder whether this was why I lost my job in a train operating company because they found out that I was "educated". I know that they watched me like a hawk to try and prove that I had not got the requisite skills to be able to issue tickets; even when they knew that I had been in a railway operating company before for three years.

What the government is trying to do is talk out of a lot of sides of its face all at the same time. Its trying to battle against an anti-intellectual society and an anti-skill society. We really dont want anyone thats skilled and educated because then they might be able to do the job and make the rest of us look silly. Its like all that conversation that goes on in newspaper blogs about Sir Ian Blair - the rumours that he might be educated, that he might have done something about racism in the force, that he might have allowed equal opportunities to have taken place and displaced some of the machismo within the police service. Oh an educated man - better steer clear of him.

A lot of these criticisms are taking place from armchair pundits who have never really done much in their lives. I am not saying that the Metropolitan Police is so perfect but there is no need to assasinate the head of it just because he's an intellectual and a liberal. Thats far from being the point. Most of the people who do criticise such a person have never been on the front line themselves of ANY service, thats for sure.

My feeling is, that the English society has come so far down, that we dont want to do anything; that we despise people with skills and intellectual ability really and that we cant wait to do them down. In short, we are a miserable shower. If the government really wanted us to have skills (and education) it would not talk out of the other side of its face and take away £100million from lifelong learning either. As the man from del Monte would say "Its all a bit of a lash up really". Or maybe Francis Urquhart would have said "Skills and education. You may well say that. I could not possibly comment."