The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Small Business Mentoring

The catchily named Associate Parliamentary Skills Group and National Skills Forum, an "influential cross-party group of MPs", continues the present trend for contraction and convergence in the political sphere by agreeing various measures for the profit of UK plc: "increased funds for adult training, a greater focus on apprenticeships and training tax breaks for small businesses".

The businesses can be very small indeed, it seems: Barry Sheerman, a Labour member of the Associate Parliamentary Skills Group and National Skills Forum, is shocked at the dilatory dreaminess of Britain's five-year-olds. "For too many children, a future as a fairy princess or pop star is the only dream they have, and it doesn't occur to them to aspire to go to university, be a doctor or a scientist," he said. Or a chimney sweep, perhaps.

The Chair of the National Primary School Head Teachers' Association gave the idea of providing careers advice for five-year-olds a "cautious welcome". He did say it would be wrong "to give young children precise advice on their future careers", though it is unclear whether he meant more precise or less precise than going to university or being a doctor or a scientist. There is, however, "no reason why we could not give them an awareness of the reality of the way the world works."

Well, that would be a good thing, certainly. No one wants children with no awareness of the reality of the way the world works. Such children would presumably be immune to the wonders of family values, to the advantages of the free market and perhaps even to the Social Darwinist lessons of life in the playground. Such children would presumably be classed as autistic, and hence not a particularly good investment for anyone. We certainly cannot permit British children to grow up in a state of sensory deprivation, as undoubtedly they must unless the reality of how the world works is drummed into them by a careers mentor.

A five-year-old with no idea of how to pass a job interview? A primary school pupil without an appropriately realistic sense of upcoming job-market opportunifications? An infant unable to compute the level of basic salary necessary to pay back the student loan for which said infant will have to apply in barely more than a decade? When New Labour gets around to reintroducing the great Victorian idea of juvenile career opportunities for the income-challenged, parents and wee ones alike will thank their lucky stars for the foresight of the Associate Parliamentary Skills Group and National Skills Forum.

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