Gordon Brown proposes to introduce community work for young people up to the age of 19. They will be expected to do 50 hours of voluntary work by the time they reach 19 years old and he said a promise to bring in compulsory community service would be part of his next election manifesto. Under the scheme, the work may include helping charities and is likely to become part of the school curriculum and would be woven into plans to make everyone stay in education or training until the age of 18 by 2011.
He writes in yesterday's News of the World, "It is my ambition to create a Britain in which there is a clear expectation that all young people will undertake some service to their community and where community service will become a normal part of growing up."
All well and good isn't it? Not for me. 5o hours is nothing and introducing such a scheme which will interfere with the formal education of our youngsters is just daft. They have enough pressures with unnecessary additions to their curriculum without this. Germany, Austria and Switzerland have compulsory military or civilian service programmes but these do not affect school children and are designed for young people to undertake either during or after, usually after, higher education. As some of my readers know I worked in Germany and Switzerland some years ago now and the young people spoke highly of their time working in their area of choice and I never heard any negative comments, except the pay was too low (they do receive a livable wage).
Similar programmes for our young have been muted over the years but with no result. I'm all for our young people developing their characters and learning new skills in well planned projects but this isn't well planned. It appears as if it's just an impulsive thought or could it be the idea of someone else whom Gordon idolises? After all, why make the effort of thinking up good policies when you can steal from your new best friend. (Now the picture makes sense doesn't it?)
Education is a devolved matter as we know and I trust the Scottish government has no intention of introducing this idea into the school curriculum or anything remotely like it.
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6 comments:
Sorry Subrosa....
Your Gordon Brown reminds me of our previous Prime Minister Paul Martin...all they wanted was to become Prime Minister and they manipulated everything they could until they got there only to prove they were as useless as TITS on a BULL...lol
I have and will never have any respect for either one of them...
As fgor Obama...well he will not last long...!
Morning Baron, you've sussed the two of them out well. Many here think that way too I'm sure.
Hope you're feeling a wee bit better today. The sun has been shining here for a couple of days and that helps bring a little lightness to most folk. Do hope it does for you.
I did a great deal more than fifty hours voluntary work before the age of 19 but if I had been told to do so by some council goon I would have told them to get stuffed.
Gordon is just displaying his delusional authoritarian streak. Perhaps it is a scam to support his fake charities ( and chariddeee employment )though dragooning the unwilling young would prove to be more trouble than it is worth.
The Swiss scheme is, so I unserstand, an alternative to compulsory military service but the reason our Armed Forces do not want conscription is that they have no wish to become a branch of Social Services.
Lots of youngsters do a little voluntary work banned but it shouldn't be compulsory when they're studying for highers and the like. Good for you though. I can't think of anything I did when young although as a brownie (for my sins) I suppose we did contribute. Mind you it was so long ago ...
Yes the Swiss scheme is compulsory and there is a choice of military or civilian service.
Of course the army are quite right not to want conscription in the way it's been spoken about in recent years. Politicians and others have mentioned it as a means of dumping the dross of society onto the military. They don't want that, they don't have the staff to handle it and they need entrants with something between their ears in today's army.
Mind you, with the cut of 10,000 in the TA that I read about yesterday, maybe conscription will come back on the cards.
How many others think this is another quikspin from the bunker to take the heat of Smeargate headlines.
But, the pygmies are not losing focus on Broon's moral compass leadership.
"Moral Compass," the Parliamentary side of my erse it is.
Interestingly the Swiss also have such a system but only as an alternative to military service. So, maybe?
I think Atrgentina has something similar.
Arbeit Mach Frei!
Now now FC, the Swiss and German model is something all 20somethings seem to enjoy, whether it's the military or civilian service. Mind you they're paid a decent wage for it. None of this doing it during school time or study time.
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