“apologies dave it appears alex is the ignorant one”

“dave you really are ignorant to the lives of a lot of people on benefit , there are many single mums out there that are on benefit because they have partners who are avoiding responsibility of their children , and as for your comments about their children i have a daughter who has brought up 3 boys on her own ,her eldest had 11 c gcse s , the second has an apprentiship and the youngest is dolng very well at school so whilst there may be people on benefit through choice you would sound more educated yourself if you didnt generalise people”

“How true Simon we are about to have the best qualified dole queue ever. Employers want people who can do something rather than describe doing it!”

“A lot of new Uni's are Poly technical colleges which government has allowed to change the name (UWE), same as all these school academies, different name same clientele.”

“The rush by the government to hit its own university targets has meant that there has been a glut of courses created of no real value, just a means by which Whitehall bean counters can sleep easy. This created a rush to university, the fallout from which we are now seeing with hundreds of uni graduates filling jobs that would, as Alex says, be doable with A-levels.
As a result, I think many are seeing this and considering that there is no point in university.
Not the entire answer but one aspect.”

“Dave - you have a point. The offspring of two benefit scroungers is going to inherit their genes plus be raised in an environment that leads them to turn out the same way. The fact is a lot of poor kids have no chance of a decent life with a career from an early age. It is almost impossible to break the chain.

However, there are plenty of alternative routes. Local colleges offer a multitude of courses that can set you up with a trade, fill in the gaps missing from school or give people a second chance to get to university if they maybe did not realise the benefits first time around. There is too much of a focus on university now and, as Richard points out, many jobs such as those in offices now require a degree even though to be honest anyone with A-Levels could do the job.

What we need to do is send less people to uni and more people to local colleges that teach real practical skills. There is a difference between those who do not aspire to go to uni and those who do not aspire to do anything with their lives at all.”

“It is an anomaly that is difficult to overcome that Bristol, widely seen as one of the country's most prosperous cities with an above average qualified workforce, also has some of the most deprived wards in the country and one of the poorest education systems.

I suppose the qualifications of the workforce is helped by the presence of incomers, privately-educated locals (of whom Bristol has a well above average number) and those who are sent to state schools just outside the city boundary.

There are signs that Bristol is beginning to come to terms with its appalling education record with a number of new schools. Perhaps in time this might lead to a wider take-up of university places.


I don't think it so much that these youngsters are necessarily thick. It might have more to do with parental support and traditional expectations.”

“Richard, thank you for that well-constructed and fulsome erudite comment. Of course it could be that they are just THICK!.”

“The question one has to ask here is are the young people in our bread line communities being encourgaed by teachers and role models to go in to higher education?

It's not for teachers, key workers or parents to judge any young person by assuming that they'll never have the ability to go to university. People should be told about all of the routes in to university and other opportunities in case they decide later that university is something they'd like to try i.e. Access Courses in artnership with UWE and other universities.

However there's still an argument between the wage that those attending univerity can demand and those learning a trade can demand.
More often in general terms, tradesman can earn more and have a value which they can quickly go self employed with especially Electricians, Builders, Plumbers, Carpenters etc instead of university graduates which face competition in a different scale, often falling in to sales and office careers and wasting their education if they aren't supported after graduating. This is evident throughout city offices in London and Bristol.

The government needs to explore opportunities for all young people opposed to seeing them generally as percentage figures.

Careers officers also play a crucial role in helping young people decide on their directions... some judge people heavily based on their schooling when programmes like The Appentice and books written about sucessful tycoons prove that education is often secondary to success, but maybe it shapes us in to creative individuals which see the bigger picture smarter? Maybe not?”