We Don't Need No Education.

As many of you will probably know, I am far too nice for my own good. I always see the positives in people and I want every single individual that I meet and know to be happy and successful in life. I believe that every single person in this world can do anything - all they have to do is set their mind to it. And it really gets on my nerves when people are given the tools to make something quite brilliant and they end up pissing it away.

Why am I saying this at half 11 on a Friday morning? Because whilst casually browsing Twitter earlier today, I came across a tweet saying:

'Attended 1 day of sixth form so far this week, nice going.'

Now, I don't like to be an old so-and-so about this, but people like this really get my goat. We in this country are lucky to have a free education system, that from the ages of 4 until 18, it is a compulsory requirement for us to go to school five days a week. Of course there are still the private and boarding schools that charge tuition fees, but I went to a free comprehensive and have come out of it with 3 A Levels, 4 AS Levels and 12 GCSE's. We really take it for granted sometimes just how fortunate we are, there are countries around the world (particularly the poorer nations) where school is just for the rich, and not for the intelligent. There are kids on this planet who actually DREAM about going to school and learning about things. Perhaps we should switch them all over? Any person that does not want to learn is shipped out to wherever and replaced by someone who would jump at the chance to learn Maths, English and Science. We'd reduce the amount of people leaving school with next-to-nothing and Jeremy Kyle would be out of a job in 5 years.

What gets me even more, though, is that this individual is in SIXTH FORM. Now, although the laws changed in 2010 to state that all children must stay in school until they are 18, that law only applied to the Year 7s around the country that year. For everyone Year 8 to 11, they were still allowed to leave at 16. This person consciously CHOSE to stay on for A Levels and actually obtained the grades to do so. As far as I can see, they are wasting the opportunity to build their foundation for life even more and seem to be happy about doing it in the process. Yes, I was very happy that I was finally studying less than 5 subjects and that I had at least one free period a day, and when it came to Year 13 I was going home after half a day as well. But I still put the effort in. I attended every single class whether I wanted to or not, and it paid off. Only an error by the exam board scuppered me of the B that I deserved for my Drama A Level. Again, there are people who would KILL to go to Sixth Form and improve their chances of going to university, so to see people like the above who are apparently abusing the system just rubs salt into the wounds.

I won't get on to university because it's an entirely different board game, but let me just finish with this - when Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997, he began his opening speech with the words 'Education, education, education.' Now, I can fully see why. It appears that many people in the UK DO believe that 'We don't need no education.' Fine by me, enjoy just being another brick in the wall.

Laters xx