Civil Service internship. Only children of the "working class"

[Quirkswork]

If your child is coming up for 14 and interested in a career in the Civil Service and you have a job in a profession or that means you pay a lot of tax, I suggest you down tools now.

As reported in the Telegraph,

Civil Service internships will only be offered to students from lower income families in a bid to make Whitehall more working class, ministers have announced.

Only young people from “lower socio-economic backgrounds” will be able to apply to Whitehall’s internship programme, the Cabinet Office has said.

A student will be judged eligible depending on what jobs their parents did when they were 14. Students with parents who are receptionists, electricians, plumbers, butchers or van drivers would be among those eligible for the programme.

I tagged you with my simple Google to that at 16:11
I added two screenshots

of note Classics is very popular at both schools my kids attended.
No idea re Latin, only one of mine was interested and didn’t take it to Alevel. The other two did Russian and German

My answer to that would be to offer them in state schools. Not levelling down and all that.

Great crack on then, doesn’t mean the numbers of privately educated in the top unis and jobs shouldn’t correlate with the numbers who are privately educated across society as a whole ie a much lower percentage than there is currently.

It’s horrendous. There was a fight between year 7 girls at my nephews school that took 9 teachers to break up. Then another fight outside the school between the parents of the girls in question. I pay for my youngest son’s school to keep him safe. He is ND and would be eaten alive in many state schools. I couldn’t give a shit whether he wants to work in the civil service or not, but he shouldn’t be denied that option if he wants to just because I decided to pay for his education rather than going to Florida every year.

Classics and ancient history are in some schools but they’re not popular as state educated are more likely to need to spend money on degrees that get jobs particularly when families are increasingly struggling to send kids to uni.

We agree on something Cardibach🥳

Most families can’t afford Florida at all let alone every year.

Yes I know many working class families that do, people that I grew up with and went to state school with…

Independent schools represent the children of the top 10% of earners. Generally, not always, but generally these people have traits that have allowed them to become the top 10% of earners. These traits often get passed onto their children.

PS definitely helps, but even if these kids were at state schools you’d expect them to be over represented in top unis and jobs.

Wow @cardibach !! You’re back in my good books.

How? Most lower middle class families are lucky if they get a week in Cornwall. The average cost is £10-20k.It is unheard off with the children I work with.

But why? All the top private schools are academically selective. If you lines up every child at school in academic ability order, the top ability would contain most of the private school cohort. I would therefore expect private school pupils to be disproportionately be represented at universities and top jobs.

You’re derailing the very good point @cardibach was making

Why shouldn’t state kids have the same subjects available as private school kids
and for that matter the same as Grammars a lot of which still teach Latin

Sorry that’s rubbish. If you have stellar A levels from a state school you are just as worthy and stats show that state educated often do better than privately educated at uni.

You know many working class families spending £18,000 on holidays every year?

Including selective state and Grammar schools of course

They have done something, they’ve made them more expensive and caused loads to close. Seems bonkers, but that’s labour for you.

They do though, our massive 6th form college offers classics and so do others. None of our grammas offer Latin.

Train drivers, plumbers, builders, electricians, beauty salon owners…my electrician cousin has spent much of his career out earning me as a lawyer, and he certainly earns more than my teacher brother…

Doesn’t that come down again to what is the definition of working class? Can you be working class and wealthy? I know people who are middle class and can barely afford their rent let alone a holiday

How do you define a working class family?

and we’re back to the definition of working class again 🤪

you beat me to it 🤪🤪
here we go again

oo and @Drfosters !

I have no idea whether Boohoo’s working class families equate to the definitions used by the Socisl Mobility Commission.

Of course they are just as worthy, why wouldn’t they be? . Do you have a link to these stats?