Youth employment

Ian Duncan-Smith has appealed to British businesses to employ British youngsters instead of immigrants. However a spokesman for the employers, David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: 'They expect young people to come forward to them who are able to read, to write, to be able to communicate and have a strong work ethic.' They can find these traits more in the immigrant population.

Who is responsible for the fact that British kids leave school so poorly educated? Step forward those teachers, many of whom follow socialist ideology that despise elitism, hate the thought that some children are better than others and therefore dumb down the whole curriculum thereby failing everyone. First the eleven plus was abolished and then many grammar schools as they stupidly tampered with a system that enabled the academically inclined to learn and the manually dextrous to make. These people didn't stop in the classroom; their ideology extended to the playing fields where for fear that a less sporting child should feel inadequate they banned competitive sports and sold off the playing fields. These people are still teaching our children and are active members of the National Union of Teachers, for many years a hotbed of socialist thinking. These are the people who have been on strike expecting the Nation's sympathy, whilst inconveniencing the people they are meant to serve. These people and the Labour, socialist governments have ruined a perfectly good education system for their own political ends. If the truth be told, they do not want an elite.
They have tried to persuade the public that they are succeeding by making the exams so easy that even the dimmest children achieve some sort of grade, whether they can count or not. Good teachers must despair of ever teaching unruly children protected from discipline by human rights laws that defy reason and headteachers with no backbone.

I came from a working class background, went to Grammar school and then to University. I can remember my teachers being largely graduates because teaching was then a proper profession. There were no beards and the use of first names. They attended in suits and attracted the respect of the pupils with command of their subject, intolerance of  indiscipline and the backing of a headteacher who supported her team.

Let us get back to selection. The academics go to Grammar schools and those who want a trade with a view to taking an apprenticeship, attend a College of Further Education. Let's face it, there are many plumbers now who earn more than graduates so let nobody think this is a lesser option.