Staff writer - Maureen Gordon
One of the recent arguments which led me to begin thinking about the different times in which we live was the debate in 2011 over withdrawing The Education Maintenance grant (EMA). This grant was given to all young people 16 and over in the U.K who stayed on in full time education. The amount was £30 a week; I believe it was a form of incentive in the beginning to encourage young people to remain in education; they did not receive it if they did not come to school. But for most young people who were already experiencing economic hardship it was more than that; it was a life line to enable them to continue in school and to support themselves.
However one of the concerns about this grant was that it was money given to young people who have not earned it, they were getting this money just for turning up for 6th form or college; this was not a good enough incentive and did not teach them anything about the value of money. If we look back 30-40 years ago this support did not exist and students in those days had to go and find a part time job, I was one of those students. It was easier then there were good part time jobs available. We have to realise that we are living in different times now. Recession, job cuts and losses of certain industries we once took for granted, ensures that young people growing up in these days will no longer have a choice of picking and choosing the jobs they would like to go into, not even a part time job.
What is the moral to this story? I believe it is this: what we did yesterday does not apply to the new situations that our young people are facing today. Times are harder now. It is like the old saying that says you cannot put “new wine into old wine skins, if you do, you will destroy the old wineskin and the new wine will spill out.” What I am saying is that if we try to apply old methods of dealing with and tackling some of these issues, we will end up with a mess.
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