Gaby Hinsliff presents a compelling case for the 50% of young people eligible for higher education courses (It’s the Tories who broke Britain, but now they want teenagers to pay for it, 31 May), but why is no one, politician or journalist, making any kind of case for the young people who will pay an even higher price for government failure?
What about young people who can only find low-paid work in hospitality, agriculture or caring professions? They work just as hard and are more likely to be on minimum-wage, zero-hours contracts. Their chances of bettering their prospects are minimal, as they are locked into a just-about-coping lifestyle. What is an even greater scandal than student debt and collapsing apprenticeships is that adult education, which used to give people a second chance to gain GCSEs and A-levels or vocational qualifications suited to their aspirations, is now virtually nonexistent.
We are banking too much on a single-chance qualification system at the end of schooling, at a time when students are still adolescents who don’t always understand the importance of final exams. They may be ill, or circumstances may disrupt their education. They may simply regard their case as hopeless.
Is it because young people from poorer backgrounds with fewer educational qualifications are less likely to vote that they are so easily overlooked? Frankly, I don’t blame them.
Yvonne Williams
Ryde, Isle of Wight
• As someone born in a house that disappeared in Newcastle’s slum clearances, I was surprised to find myself as a teenager discussing university as an option with teachers who led me to believe that arts degrees, as much as science courses, honed your thinking processes and strengthened an ability to ask hard questions. They would have taken as read Gaby Hinsliff’s classical defence of this process.
I went on to get degrees in English (redbrick) and theology (Oxbridge). I was happy to play a part in what the nation (and my local council) saw as a valuable investment. Those teachers would have been baffled by a government that brands as failures graduates like me who chose not to see a degree in terms of market value or a means of generating a higher income.
Geoff Reid
Worsbrough, South Yorkshire
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