Now my fellow students, as you will agreed not everyone can be an A* student some people are more skilled in a practical way then academic. Get a trade or an apprenticeship instead of a degree. We still need the dustbin men to take our rubbish in the morning and waste disposal rather then become overpaid MPs. It’s already hard enough to get a job in the world we live in today. Think about the future when the qualifications bar will be raised and everyone will be too qualified. Top students will suffer because of the disruptive people in the back row throwing paper and chatting. Do you really want this in our classrooms? There is already a poor discipline in schools.
Young people will be reluctant to go and there is already a high dropout rate. How do you keep young people in education? The answer is you can’t. They can fine the parents but that isn’t going to make a difference, only giving the government more money. There is already enough stress and pressure forced on us by schools with exams followed by revision and more exams. Everything we do involves some sort of test.
Sportsman and up and coming athletes like a really talented footballer for example cannot train enough because they have to learn trigonometry and find the hypotenuse side of a triangle. So England will not win any sports events.
What about the financial difficulties that await students when they leave school? There are high insurance rates, mortgage, tax increases or the ongoing increase of petrol prices and convenience goods. Don’t forget the huge debt if you go to University. You only really start to earn money in your later twenties and even then you have to climb the ladder of success before you can have a respectable salary.
There are benefits like a better educated society and a course in higher education gets you into a profession and makes you well organised and gives your life a structure as the government says but these are only words. The main reason is they want to cut down on crime and drugs but is an extra two years the answer. The disadvantages overwhelm the advantages.
The long-term repercussions of businesses will have the biggest effect. The minimum wage will be raised because everyone is too well educated to work in Mcdonalds or Tescos for low pay and inconvenient hours. So big companies will raise products prices to stop loss of profit.
My conclusion is that why should young people have two more years, when we have colleges with a variety of courses not just academic to suit people’s choice of career. There is no point having an A-level in mathematics if you want to be a hair dresser. I’m not saying this system will not work but there are a lot of complications that comes with it; I will need convincing as I don’t believe it will work nor should it be forced upon us. What happened to the freedom of choice? As young adults I think we are mature enough to choose and make our own decisions. So, fellow students, I hope that you all agreed with me and rebel against compulsory education till eighteen, only together could we prevent the government from raising the school leaving age.
