School Leaving Age to be raised to 18?

[Andy Turnbull]

From the BBC website

One of those wonderful ideas that get mooted every so often looks like it could be one step closer to reality.

I can't see the point of it myself. If kids don't want to stay in school when they are past the age of 16 then why force them? It's not like it will motivate them to do much and doesn't exactly create a healthy environment to study and learn.

Andy

[Bogatan]

After my school experience I will never be convinced keeping kids with no academic chances in school after the age of even 14 is a good idea. At 14 they should be offered practical training in the old apprentice style. By the looks of it thats what will be offered at 16, but to me it should be done earlier.

What the hell is the point of forcing kids who still cant spell there own name (there was at least one in my class) to take GCSE's. Even if they can, if they dont want to be there it's a waste of space and the teachers time and schools resources.

Andy

[Dave]

I really don't see what good raising the leaving age would do. A great thing I and my friends found about post-16 studies, be it college (me) or Sixth form (them) was that everyone doing the course wanted to be there.
For the three years I was at high school, there was a large contingent of twats who didn't want to be there and chose to demonstrate this by being as disruptive as possible. Making people who want to learn put up with this for another two years is just wrong.

[The Doctor]

I left at 17, desperate to escape a school and peer group I hated, and went straight to Uni. Being forced to stay on for an extra year when I already had the qualifications to go would not have done me any good.

-Ralph

[Dave]

^Interesting. I started Uni at 17 too. To think I could have been stuck wasting time at school, makes me shudder.

[Cullen]

Horrible idea. Like Dave said College was great because everyone wanted to be there, and there was real opportunity to learn without all the cocks you meet at school.

Plus what would they do for the extra 2 years? Couldn't be A-levels without having to further dumb them down and devalue them further.

[Deleted]

I agree with the sentiment that changing the leaving age to 18 is a bad idea. Kids who want to leave school at 16 have their reasons for doing so and has been pointed out, making them stay is just going to disrupt those pupils who really want to stay on and learn. The whole idea that the government keeps trying to promote of people moving on through a-levels and university just isn't a good idea in my opinion.

Like Cullen said, to keep grades up so it wouldn't look like schools were failing they would have to dumb down the sylabus even more. I had to restart my a-levels after moving halfway through them, and even in that one year difference I noticed that the A-levels I was doing teh second time around were a lot easier than the ones that I had started doing originally, maybe this was due to examination boards, but even universities have had to up their entrance requirements because too many people are getting higher grades. Maybe it's me just being synical, but a lot of the first years that I met when I was in my final year at university just didn't seem to have the same level of knowledge that those who started in my year did.

Next thing you know, they'll be saying everyone has to have a degree. It also reduces the value of having a-levels and to a lesser extent degrees. There has definately been too much of a push by the government to get people doing further/higher education for all of the stated reasons (dumbing down of courses etc..)

The other problem is is who will fund this, basically the government is taking away some tax payers suggesting this and with an aging population, that is going to put more of a burden on the rest of us.

Sorry rant over..

[Shockprowl]

No, I don't agree with raising the age either, 16 is about right IMO. But don't you think these days that people are doing things later in life than in years gone by? As an example look at having children, these days many folk are going about it in there late 20s early 30s, where as in my partents day it was early 20s.

[Hero]

If kids want to have the chance of staying on for extra years of education they should be granted it and those who don't would have other options.

In my own experience of working in schools I've seen kids who stay on benefit from thier extra years of input considering that around that later time of school thier more troubled classmates who otherwise put a downer on things have either moved on to community college or just left leaving behind the ones who want to learn to make the most of things.

===KEN

[gloriana]

Agree with everything has been said so far. Forcing kids to stay on to 18 is nonsensical. I know of at least one sixth-former who was forced to by his parents and has caused nothing but trouble for his teachers ever since.

[andrewcrane]

I say lower the school leaving age to 14. Seriously.

I went to a boys comprehensive school, and 1.) I've always thought it was incredibly cruel for the State to take two years of the lives of those kids, two thirds of whom wouldn't get the 'bench mark' five GCSEs, when they could've been doing something that was better for their own careers and 2.) for people like me who wanted to do A-levels and a degree, we were held back by disruptive kids who didn't want to be in school, and shouldn't have had to be there.

(Anyone read about the mass protests by Dutch schoolkids last week? No? Oh well.)