by Lawrence George

Created on: November 28, 2009   Last Updated: September 14, 2010

Eighteen is the age of majority in the UK. This means that we are talking about sending adults, compulsorily, to school. Think about that for a minute. Would anyone demand that you, as an adult, work in the same place, in the same way, as everyone else? So why on earth should eighteen year olds, who are adults either in law or in all but law?

Up to a certain point, school can be good for all, or most. At the age of six, seven, eight, most children need to acquire the same skills, along with basic socialisation. By eight or nine it is certainly possible to spot a child with a talent for art, music or writing. But in most if not all cases, that talent will not be enough to enable them to leave school and pursue that talent exclusively. These children still need the training in maths, languages and the other things we deem necessary as a society for our young people to learn.

The trouble with schooling up to eighteen is that these talents and aptitudes widen and deepen as children get older, and the relative importance of other branches of knowledge declines. No-one doubts that to be well-educated in the broadest possible fashion is a good thing, but often, once a young person passes a certain age, which could be sixteen or even fourteen, their competencies are already set and their general knowledge already enough to live with in the wider world. For example, by sixteen, a competent, flowing writer will have -generally- discovered their talent and be using it in school if not elsewhere. By the same age they will have covered all the relevant maths and history that most adults do not remember anyway.

This means that it could well be pointless asking that student to continue with studies which not only do not feed their talents but which cannot be considered essential.

Of course you cannot leave school at sixteen and be guaranteed a job as a writer. The idea is ridiculous. But for every competency which is clear: mathematical, mechanical, physical - there should be the option for a young person to pursue it under their own steam: either at school, at college, in an apprenticeship, in a job. Forcing students to follow a narrow path until eighteen causes frustration and is demotivating.

I can hear objections: my ideas in the previous paragraph are supposedly just what the last UK Government put in place with its education until eighteen policy. Well, sort of. Government can never promise or fund enough places. And most eighteen year olds will inevitably be stuck

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