Anyway, this is what i wrote:
I think this green paper is approaching the issue of further
learning from completely the wrong direction. The green paper
contains all sorts of unspoken negative assumptions about young
people and their desire to participate in and contribute to
society. Young people are not cogs in a machine nor should they
obliged to fit themselves in with the requirements of the economy.
Young people's only responsibility is to themselves, it is to find
lives and means of making a living that are both purposeful and
meaningful. If people are allowed to pursue lives that are
personally meaningful and self-directed the result will be a strong
economy because people will feel part of society and wish to
contribute to it positively. If you create a system that turns this
principle on its head and tries to enforce on young people the
method by which they participate it will be counter-productive. By
your own admission you realise that many young people may leave the
school system still without basic literacy or numeracy, therefore
you acknowledge that this structure of formal 'guided' learning
does not always produce the required/intended outcome. By 16 young
people have already been through 11 years of compulsory schooling,
and many of them find this to have been a restrictive, controlling
experience that has often not been a meaningful way to gain an
education. If you want young people to acquire skills and make a
contribution to society (and thus to the economy) it MUST be on
their own terms. If society treats young people with contempt no
wonder they respond by rejecting what is offered to them by way of
'fake' choices. Taking real responsibility for their lives is what
will motivate young people to make a positive contribution.
Learning is about so much more than gaining bits of paper or
letters after your name. If you want young people to extend their
skills and knowledge it is far more vital to provide the widest
possible variety of opportunities and the financial support to
enable young people to pursue them, for example providing financial
support for those wishing to do voluntary work as a means of
learning new skills and gaining workplace experience. Surely
complete flexibility has to be the way forward, allowing young
people to combine work (full or part time) with learning in
whatever form that might take, possibly at college or school or
workplace learning, self-directed learning, informal
apprenticeships, correspondence courses or open university, with
voluntary work and community projects. What is important is to give
value and support to all activities that young people might choose.
Compulsion has absolutely no place in such an approach.