It's not easy being young!

Written by David Heath MP and published in Western Gazette on Thu 27th Aug 2009

At the risk of sounding smug, we had some good news last week. My son Tom went into Frome College last Thursday to get his A level results in good heart, as he had already logged in to the University Entrance website at eight o'clock in the morning to find out that he had his university place, so must have got the necessary grades. In fact he did better than he expected, so congratulations and celebrations were in order.

And of course there were similar scenes in households up and down the country as nervous teenagers found out their results, which, as the media have lost no time in telling us, were better than ever and therefore, in the opinion of some, more suspect than ever. I don't share that general view, although I do think the design of exams and content of the curriculum need to be looked at again so that we can better distinguish the performance of those at the upper end of the spectrum, as both university admissions tutors and prospective employers need to be able to identify the best from the good.

Of course there will also be a great number of students who didn't get the results they were hoping for, and we should spare a thought for them. The prospects of getting a place on a degree course this year through the clearing system are reckoned to be the worst ever. A report in the papers this week suggests that fourteen prospective students are chasing ever single place available through the clearing system, so it is inevitable that a large proportion will be disappointed. Some will be desperately unlucky, and may have set their sights on the wrong, over-subscribed course. Some actually will be better off finding a different route, and should be encouraged to re-think their plans. I am not one who believes that every young person should go to university even if it is clear that an academic course is not for them.

But the problem is that many are persuaded that it is the only thing that matters. The massive expansion in the number of university places, albeit not keeping pace with the hugely inflated demand, has led to a belief that anyone who doesn't spend three years in higher education has somehow failed. That cannot be right, nor can it be right that those who are not suited to university courses are shoe-horned into degrees that will make very little difference to their future careers and will simply lumber them with substantial debt. Far better that they take a vocational or training route into employment.

But there's the rub. This year is probably the worst ever for young people entering employment, whether directly from school or with the benefit of a degree. Recent graduates (we've got one of them too) are desperately firing off job applications without even the hint of a positive response, the most demoralising thing imaginable. Those who want to enter work immediately from school are finding apprenticeships and entry level employment difficult to find. And as for temporary or casual jobs to see you through the summer and provide a little cash, forget it. There just aren't any around.

This is enormously depressing, and has the potential to be a real problem. We can't afford to have a whole generation of young people whose legitimate expectations of entering the job market are stalled indefinitely. All too soon that becomes a generation who are cynical, disaffected and ultimately unemployable. One of the key tasks facing our country if and when we extract ourselves from the present economic downturn is to turn on the taps of employment for those youngsters and get them in work before they are overtaken by their younger brothers and sisters and find themselves at an irreversible disadvantage.

That won't be easy. One way many university leavers are trying to bridge the gap is by taking unpaid "intern" jobs. That's good in the sense that they are doing useful, but there is a fine dividing line between a helpful hand on to the ladder of employment giving valuable experience, and simply exploiting those who can't turn down an offer but desperately need to be paid if their lives are going to be anything other than living off mum and dad indefinitely. That's not good for them, and it doesn't do the parental balance sheet much good either.

So we need companies who find their fortunes improving to invest not only in making the best of their assets but recognising that one of our key national assets is the next generation of wealth creators and service providers. Unless we focus our attention on that over the next year or so, my fear is that we will be making a desperate mistake. We remember the stresses of long-term unemployment from the eighties and early nineties. We can't afford to go back to that.

One up-beat comment before I close. I can't let the re-winning of the Ashes pass without adding my congratulations. I'm afraid that even when Australia had to pass the highest fourth wicket total ever scored in first class cricket to win, I still feared it was not beyond the ingenuity of England cricket to find a way of messing things up. I was wrong to doubt, and I apologise. There is a peculiar satisfaction in beating the Aussies at anything. Sorry, that's probably horribly prejudiced, but it's true. So well done England. You've cheered us all up!