The BBC reports: "There will be an 'educational opportunity' Bill so all young people can stay in education or training to the age of 18, Gordon Brown told MPs.
"The measure - one of several announced in the Commons - is an effort to drive up the 'staying on' rate. "
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This basically is a nice way of saying that education or training will be compulsory for 16-18 year olds who are unemployed. It is part of a bigger strategy to deal with the NEET (Not in Education Employment or Training) problem and is due to come into force for 17 year olds in 2013 and 18 years olds in 2015. How effective it will be remains to be seen and it is not without it's opponents - especially when the proposals include fining young people who are NEET - effectively criminalising them for doing nothing.
For one I welcome a proposal that makes it less attractive to be an unproductive future benefit leech, however to insist that young people do something, and criminalising them if they don't, even if they are supported by parents and not benefits does seem to encroach on individual choice.
Is this where left wing socialism reaches so far that it meets right wing capitalism round the back? "You will want to better yourself even if we have to make you do it".
Radio 4's PM discussed the issue this evening. Listen to an interview with Jim Knight, the Schools Minister and Adam Hildreth, who left school at 16 after setting up his first company when he was 14:
LISTEN HERE (Download the item in MP3 format) >
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