Provocative opinion from a third sector maverick

May 2009 - Posts

  • New dragons

    Delighted to hear that Peter Jones is funding an academy to train young entrepreneurs.  I can see that this has obvious PR spin-off for him too, and no doubt the fly-on-the-wall documentary idea is already being pitched, but I do think that entrepreneurship and mentoring are part of the future for education.  If someone has reached what they consider to be the end of their natural school life but is fizzing with enthusiasm for a business idea or project, that should be encouraged at every level – we learn by experience after all.  Entrepreneurship helps overcome the fear of failure that hobbles so many young people as the drive to reach the end goal is such that setbacks can be overcome.  Mentoring also allows young people to see that their mentors probably failed disastrously at some stage, but were able to carry on and be successful.      We did some work with NESTA last year on young innovators and I was staggered at the level of commitment and business confidence that the young people demonstrated.

  • Primark and a brothel

    This is #49 in Youth Research, namely "Don't ask questions unless you know what the answer is going to be".  Scotland on Sunday reported on a story from the Selkirk Regeneration Group who canvassed teenagers on what they wanted in Selkirk.  Chairman Dr Lindsay Neill was less than impressed when the sixth formers said they wanted "a cinema, a KFC, a playing field, a Primark and....a brothel." 

  • Moving away from one size fits all

    Research from Edge, the independent education foundation, shows that 40% of 15-16 year olds are failing to flourish in class.  It is urging the government to move away from the one size fits all policy, to one that gives young people the chance to "develop their own talents through real world experience".  More than two fifths of parents said that they felt that their children were not prepared for the world of work.  I bang on continually about the need to end the gulf between "schooling" and work and that to compete in a global marketplace we cannot keep unleashing spoon-fed and uninspired young people into the workforce.  Nice to hear it being backed up by research.  However I take issue with the part that described signals of unhappiness in young people being "late nights out and constantly visiting social networking sites".  Surely that is simply a signal of being...er...young?

  • Thugs or heroes?

    David Cameron was having a pop at Brown in PMQs and said that Labour had demonised an entire generation of young people, or words to that effect.  My experience of working with both Labour and the Conservatives on their policy toward young people is that there is little to choose between the parties on ths issue.  Certain sections of the press, however, ("Is this Britain's youngest ever thug?" type headlines) have done their best to scapegoat young people, usually whilst running a picture of a teenager with her top off in the same edition.  They then appear to be desperate to get misty-eyed over 'children of courage' and those hapless young people who have celebrity parents.   What we want our young people to be is, to a certain extent, up to the rest of us and the fact that they are alternately stamped as thugs and heroes in the national press expresses the general confusion there is around young people in Britain.

Children & Young People Now is the official publication for members of the National Children's Bureau and The National Youth Agency.