Contained but not small
As a mentor with MCR Pathways and with a daughter about to exit secondary education, I’m all ears for Alan Millburn’s findings into Young People and Work. Over 30 years ago I graduated from university into a recession but finding a job then – initially waitressing in a bar, then as a shop assistant at HMV – was a hundred times easier than it is today.
As Milburn’s report says, those hospitality and retail sector starter jobs are all but gone, with both sectors navigating the impacts of the pandemic, serving fewer customers because of the cost of living crisis, and dealing with the impact that technology and the internet have had on how we shop and spend our leisure time.
But what I wholeheartedly agree with in Millburn’s initial analysis, is the desire young people have to work and the energy that exists within them, and how this is frequently dissipated by despondence and deflation when the world at large doesn’t offer the opportunities they hope for.
Through my mentoring I’ve realised just how much advantage my daughter and the friends she’s grown up with (through the local comprehensives system) have had, due to their exposure to the world outside of school; through travel, friends and connections, via clubs and hobbies, and yes, through part-time jobs. Whereas young people I’ve mentored in a nearby town have much more contained lives, staying mostly within in their homes and neighbourhoods and only venturing into the town centre from time to time.
I’ve carefully chosen the word contained because these young people’s lives are not small. They have exploratory brains, interests and opinions that make them lively and enjoyable people to engage with. But I do wonder how they will fare beyond education when they are due to enter the world of work. I suspect they have low expectations and it’s partly my role to expand them – to show them pathways to achieving what they want to do in life and to give them some of the practical tools for navigating life beyond education. Millburn’s report has reinvigorated my desire to do this.
As for education itself, if this government does something about the archaic, exam-obsessed environment past governments have created, they will get my vote in the next election. Too many young people loath school. As one person put to me recently, ok pass exams but what about making good memories too? That’s what school should be about also.