Is it true that tutored children struggle afterwards?

[salsa]

We need them all. Young people should not feel that the only route they have to success is an academic one.

I cannot agree more. I work in a relatively deprived area where this generation is almost always the first to go to uni. On the one hand it is great that some young people are being encouraged to go to university which is absolutely the right route for them. On the other hand I see others who are pushed in that direction, who struggle hugely, repeating years (often more than once), coming out in ridiculous amounts of debt and still unable to get a job that pays a lot more than the minimum wage - and who would have been far far better off looking at more vocational courses.

That's very sad. Employers should identify that these people have shown commitment and persistence among other qualities.

[Amber]

There will always be some young people who are disengaged with the standard education system and for them it would make more sense to do something that they can see a use for like learning to be an electrician or a plumber of a farrier or a Nurseryman and those professions should be given as good a press as being an office worker or nurse or teacher. We need them all. Young people should not feel that the only route they have to success is an academic one.

I so agree. It is one reason why (mounts hobbyhorse) I believe that it ought to become the rule rather than the exception that young people do not go straight to university after school. Scandinavian teacher and lecturer friends are appalled that our children are so young when they head off, especially into such debt and uncertainty. Most would do far better to spend a bit of time finding their way in the world and sorting out what they want to do. But for this to happen there would need to be a radical restructuring - the young would need to be able to access jobs to earn money while on this voyage of self-discovery. And do some community service work too - I would make that compulsory. One of the problems is that many careers which formerly could be accessed with A levels or even GCSEs are now graduate entry. So youngsters who really aren't that suited to academic study end up doing essentially vocational courses at university. And many of these courses don't really have great job prospects. Yet still they get to fork out massive tuition fees and get themselves into debt - if they are less well off their debt is even greater as they qualify for higher loans. It is a dreadful situation and requires radical policies. But not of the kind which are being proposed, sadly.

Also - side issue - why are we trying to phase people out? Apparently drones and robots will be able to do the job of postal workers and delivery drivers, and the self checkouts at the supermarket are meant to replace staff (but we all know they don't). Why? What is the point of all this automation on the one hand and the over-qualification of young people with worthless degrees on the other? I don't understand it.

What was the question?

Tutored kids struggling? I actually know someone who is still paying for tutor help for her second year university 'child'. No need for them ever to struggle if Mummy and Daddy are prepared to go to those lengths.

[salsa]

Well, manual jobs are disappearing. Currently a refuse collection truck driver earns more than 25K. As it was advertised on one of the trucks. That would be more than a teacher on their first job which is circa 22k. So, you could say why bother to become a teacher if you'll be paid more elsewhere. However, apart from having a more rewarding job, you would have job security as at least one London borough is currently trialling self driving electric vehicles to collect rubbish at night.

Back to the issue of tutoring, the more you learn, the more pathways you make in your brain which in turn makes you learn quicker. How fast we learn is one of the current measures of intelligence.

Salsa

[kenyancowgirl]

....whilst I agree with the sentiment behind Eccentric's thought, I am not actually sure that "...those professions should be given as good a press as being an office worker or nurse or teacher..." is a great aspiration!

Are teachers and nurses given good press? I see them slated everywhere - teachers especially on here by a vast swathe of forumites who believe they know better. Nurses are constantly given bad press in the sense that the whole service is sl**ged off with the caveat that they are doing the best they can...the implication there is that the job is dreadful, underpaid, underfunded and why would you do that? And office workers recently have been in the press for rather bizaare employee requests - wear heels, don't wear religious clothing etc....

My point is, I am not sure that children have clear aspirational - and achievable - goals anymore. And this is in part to the destruction of vocational colleges etc that specialised in these areas, making them meaningful positive optional choices rather than as for theose who "failed" academia. I don't see that increased grammar school places will help this at all - I do see that investement and a restructuring of the whole education system (including a return to specialist "poly" technical colleges, so there is a proper "academic" ladder for vocational courses too) would make beneficial improvements. Alongside a return to no-fees or lower fees at HE which was one of the single aspects that improved access to education for lower income families. The thought of taking on debt voluntarily is abhorrent to true working class families.

[Amber]

Well, manual jobs are disappearing

Well, we are 'disappearing' them. Sure, innovation and technology are great things, they can free us up from drudgery and toil. But free to do what exactly? There aren't enough jobs for all of us to work in the professions or service industries. Where is the vision here? What kind of a world are we creating where people never have to get off their increasingly fat backsides to do any actual work? It is all very well making refuse collectors obsolete by designing automated versions of them; but what are the people made redundant by this supposed to do with themselves?

[yoyo123]

Teachers given a good press...

[mystery]

Well, manual jobs are disappearing

Well, we are 'disappearing' them. Sure, innovation and technology are great things, they can free us up from drudgery and toil. But free to do what exactly? There aren't enough jobs for all of us to work in the professions or service industries. Where is the vision here? What kind of a world are we creating where people never have to get off their increasingly fat backsides to do any actual work? It is all very well making refuse collectors obsolete by designing automated versions of them; but what are the people made redundant by this supposed to do with themselves?

It maybe will take a completely different way of thinking about things if the total paid workload of humans drops due to artificial intelligence, robotics, more automation etc etc - which probably it will over decades, centuries etc. It will take a completely different way of thinking to make sure that we don't end up with a huge tranche of poor unemployed people or benefit claimants and others working hard but earning well in skilled but not easy to come by jobs.

I suspect we will just create a need for services etc that no-one has hitherto dreamed of. But if not, if total workload is down, as long as the benefits of work and the work itself, is somehow shared fairly across everyone, there's no need to sit on our backsides getting fat. There's surely plenty of things people can do with their time other than just work or sit at home getting fat.

I heard someone on radio 4 last week - wish I could remember the name - who was working in robotics and talking about its big future and also about the role robotics developers have to communicate the changes in society that will need to be worked through alongside the increase in use of robots in the future.

[Amber]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036f7w ... des/player" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe one of these? ('Inside Science', radio 4)