White working class children

[NotAnotherScarf]

The bbc has a report about a review of the academic system failing white working class children. The bulk of the population.

It's brilliant that this has been looked at but the recommendations are appalling.

Basically its saying that wcc's are only fit for manual jobs. That schools should push towards offering for vocational courses.

That's where my education went 40 years ago. One child from my year group of 242 went to university at 18. We had at most 6 kids from non white backgrounds. Many went subsequently. I have always maintained the school saw us as shop assistants, factory hands and dockers.

The other recommendations will help children of all races...free travel under 22. Promoting reading etc.

One of the reasons why kids from other backgrounds are doing better has been the push to get them into university...ie black boys being actively recruited and bursarys being given solely to them. Places sponsored etc etc.

Whilst I welcome the move to vocational training. And for many people thats a brilliant move, ts disappointing that the report thinks that that's the main option for wcc's. Basically its says "we don't think your good enough for anything else " .

BBC News - White working-class children 'failed by schools system' - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq51j10q601o

Hi, it wasnt the more wealthy sector of the Indian population that came previously. It was probably the more desperate! My grandad left his wife and kids in India to work in the UK after the 2nd world war as many did after being invited and encouraged by uk government. He couldn't read or write and had zero education in India. Anyway, he came - did low paid manual labour jobs. He worked NONSTOP - often 3 jobs at once, slept a few hours only every other night. He outworked his white working class colleagues by miles! He saved and saved and went without. He bought a house with what he saved and he even let other men who were trying to work in the Uk stay for free but he did have the odd low paying lodger. His family then came and they continued to live with lodgers/randoms. He then bought more properties and ended up doing extremely well. They lived frugally and saved incredibly well but somehow remained to be very generous people. He pushed his kids into local state education and had high expectations for their future partners - educated and hardworking only. His hard work and aspirations have been inspirational to his family and the values live on.

You'd rather blame Genghis Khan that accept that the British Empire was fucking awful for the people of India?

The waves that came in in the 1940s-1980s were probably the poorer sectors

1990s onward it was IT /tech boom , then finance , students - wealthier not poorer

Coming back to the main issue I think this is more than an outcome of migrants, or even attitudes of the working class, it is directly and significantly related to the below

1980s - Thatcher outsourced manufacturing , automotive industry jobs to cheaper locations in the East - making the rich business owners and capitalists here far richer but the working class, en masse jobless. It was done for the British white wealthy class to benefit but with the PROMISE that only blue collar 'coolie' jobs were being sent away allowing white people to do white collar jobs

1990s -2010s - White collar jobs that were data entry, simple data processing from Banking and other financial services industries and of course TECH jobs to software companies and BPOs (Business process outsourcing) in the East became a thing. SO millions of white collar jobs that the working classes had transitioned to went too. Capitalists and business owners here became richer off the shareholder profits from outsourcing. The PROMISE was that only cheap data processing jobs and repetitive boring mindless transaction processing jobs were going - leaving the niche jobs in research, e.t.c. to white people.

Now with AI, no one knows what is going to go where, and what the rest of us are going to be doing.

Mrs Thatcher did not run businesses! They make their own decisions! Other locations pay less and it’s a decision taken to keep a business going. It’s not political ideology.

Humble suggestion, one easy low hanging great fruit. Create a parallel NHS for middle classes who can afford to pay some money to have cancer surgery, heart surgery and other treatments without waiting weeks and months for treatment.

Also increases optional treatment options - say getting hysterectomies for painful perimenopausal fibroids etc. which normally would not be an option under NHS till it got advanced stage for e.g.

This could sit in parallel to the Private hospitals that only the rich can afford unless covered by workplace med insurance

Plenty more white working class students can then be taken into medicine and allied healthcare professions. This sector has a demand and a potential supply and people willing to pay money to get the treatments , surgeries and medicines they need.

Going to uni is a rubbish idea for most kids apart from the exceptional and we as a nation should focus on work based practical qualifications and training rather than kids paying through the nose and beggaring themselves to get a 2.2 in a completely useless degree.

So if your skill set leans away from academia you don't get to do Shakespeare or hear classical music? Every child should be introduced to these things, be shown the wonders of English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish culture and their inheritance therein. 'Relevance' is a dirty word in my dictionary, depriving some of what others get in spades. Why should not a plumber enjoy Monteverdi and appreciate Reubens, and understand why he/she likes these things? Honestly, talk of Brave New World (that's WS by the by, borrowed by Huxley).

Two tier health system? No. But by all means encourage more w/c people to become doctors. It starts at 5 with phonics, classical music and good stories read by their teacher.

There seems to be a suggestion there that that kind of culture is at the top of an assumed cultural hierarchy and that it would elevate the lives of the hoi polloi.

People can lead very happy and fulfilling lives without Shakespeare or classical music. I personally love classical music but haven't had anything to do with Shakespeare since I waved secondary school goodbye. I much preferred the modern novels on the syllabus (Irish Leaving Cert). My love of classical music didn't come from exposure in school or piano lessons.

The old polytechnics offered a very useful alternative to university. They were adapted to Irish conditions when the old (Irish) Regional Technical Colleges were founded back in the early 1970s. These colleges offered certificates in technical areas like quality control, quantity surveying, marketing, etc. They have since morphed into Institutes of Technology, and offer qualifications ranging from certificates to advanced degrees. They are a solid alternative to a more academic third level choice. It's a pity the old UK polys were not valued. Transforming them into universities was a sad example of snobbery in action.

There is a difference between academia and culture, aand between opportunities to access something, and prolonged, reluctant and forced study of it.
I'm suggesting three things.
Firstly, that we recognise that academia is not everyone's strength. Some people lean towards the practical. That this is fine and necessary and shouldn't be discouraged, as society needs this.
Secondly, that we stop seeing academia as the superior pathway and afford equal value to the practical, so that children who lean towards the second are not seem as having failed.
Thirdly, that we widen the educational offer so that children have the opportunity to experience both academic and practical, followed by the opportunity to focus on one or the other, or a mixture, as their interests and aptitude dictates.

“Allow it” apparently means stop fighting/bullying someone. More Gen Alpha than Gen Z though (I am Gen Z and well into my 20s). The current youth are Gen Alpha and babies born right now are Gen beta

We didn't exactly grow up in wealth. We had to study to get to uni to get a job which allowed us to save up money to come here.

Most of the ITs in Ireland have now been merged to form Technological Universities (TUs) @mathanxiety.
For example the ITs in Cork and Tralee now together form Munster Technological University (MTU) while three ITs in Dublin merged to create Dublin TU.

TU Dublin I should have said.

One big issue is the fact that there is no fully agreed definition of "working class" or "middle class". It is a state of mind. It's a concept to cling to, sometimes claimed despite the obvious absurdity of the class being claimed. Sometimes to point an accusatory finger.
Other countries have varying income levels, they have professional, semi professional, skilled manual and non skilled manual workers, people in receipt of benefits - or not. They have culture and different entertainments. They have hopes and fears - what do other countries do about socio economic levels?

@Quine0nline So do we. We just use working class as a badge (like Starmer) when it’s ridiculous and it’s clearly not applicable. Using the work/qualifications categories is just too complex for many. It would be a lot more illuminating though.

In the 20th century, people were delighted to have a better education and get a better job in more pleasant working surroundings or become a professional person with a job title that meant something. Now people just pretend they are working class because their great grandfather worked in a factory. Never mind their job is completely different in terms of skill, education and generation.

Totally agree - real progress in education reform is being held back by this "disadvantage appropriation" by people who have actually done very well for themselves and grew up in a household with at least one parent who made sure they were warm, fed and had a space to do their homework. This is the differentiating factor, and it is overcome by teachers who can clearly see when this is missing, but need to have the autonomy to inspire a child to apply themselves, to see the importance of doing that when there are so many distractions in today's modern life, to give them a space to work in after school hours (this in my view, as a teacher, is vital - public library space is more limited now than it was, and it provides a warm, quiet space for young people to work in when they don't have that at home).

All of the political parties, and the institutions who rely on antagonism for their funding (Sutton Trust) are deliberately guiding the narrative towards state v private or working class disadvantage, asking for positive discrimination as the solution and they should be ashamed of themselves. The simple fix is to:

1. pay teachers more as they are the actual front line of change makers on this issue and are currently worrying about surviving against the growing cost of living like everyone else.
2. create spaces for young people to work in so that the playing field is levelled on this issue.
3. push hard on the role of parents in their child's education. Think carefully about how to persuade those that think education is not for them and start to do something about it.

Fantastic post.