Riot your life away

The recent riots have saddened many of those who work in service provision but perhaps have come as less of a shock to them than the incumbent Government.

In the last decade, and it continues, a ‘class’ structure has resurfaced but it has now been formed in educational achievement. Education has become the single most important differentiator in this nations social structure; be it voting in elections, finding/applying for a job, reading a contract or applying for assistance for benefits/courses/pensions etc education is creating our segregated society.

I fear that this is a hugely misunderstood factor in creating equal opportunities and a continuation of this attitude can only see to further distance our stakeholders.

Having worked in education at all levels, in employment, in health and on many community cohesion projects there is a clear lack of ambition throughout communities that begins and ends in learning.

We have become a society divided by educational achievement and educational potential and within this structure we continue to misunderstand how futures are affected.

We now have a various educational systems that employers (lifestyle enablers) adhere to when finding an employee.

Over 16 classically (Maths, English, Science) uneducated, no qualifications

16-18 uneducated, achieved some qualifications

18+ with decent qualifications achieved within formal education

18+ with vocational education (if there are jobs)

18+ with work experience but lacking key qualification for employment access

21+ with degree

21+ with high degree

Degree qualified with strong employment experience

Degree qualified with Masters

This list exemplifies not only how salaries are rated but how little value we place in employment experience.  

Three clear examples show this; our forgetful attitude toward those with a lifetime of experience in manufacturing/engineering but no current ‘worthwhile’ qualifications;

FJF fund and other such schemes which offer a very basic salary for work experience but do not actually allow for progressive work experience unless they were placed in the certain public realms (something I believe FJF was criticised for);

And recent proposed legislature that serves to financially support those with high degrees into finding a route into teaching rather than supporting those who have a natural flair in inspiring and well, educating! (Educating is about much more than intelligence, we need the best educators in our struggling schools and not the ones who have been most highly rewarded for their education retention)

All these examples show a lack of comprehension to the future of employment and simply create barriers for those who access them.

I currently live with an Australian who has had 15 excellent years experience in the construction industry but has found that in the UK sweeping a factory floor better suits his perceived experiences.

Many argue that not all employers act to ignore past work experience but in my practice as an employment specialist it is very clear that education acts as a selector tool, a value benchmark and a reason to reject.

At the very least we need to understand that work and life experience can be just as important as education and that by setting out our ‘requirements’ from the outset (because we live in such a classically educationally motivated society), we are actually discouraging applicants, reducing self belief and marginalising self worth.

The riots came from a lack of education and continued because of an enhanced feeling of control; the criminal element gripped when rioting became organised looting and many people simply found a cost effective purpose for the evening.

The Midlands and North West were an excellent example of this and many people without employment found themselves taking to the streets and reclaiming that control they have lacked; their decisions were still criminally motivated but as a Government we should be tackling the reasons this occurred and why people felt little or no remorse, what we shouldn’t be doing is acting to further separate those with barriers to potential lifestyle ambitions.

We have been given a chance; the worst elements of our society have presented themselves to us and like the emerging popularity of the BNP/NF should be teaching us lessons about our failings and not testing our muscular capacity.

Those failings are bound up in a lack of opportunity, an assumption of uniform access and an ignorant approach to tackling organised crime; we have placed our attentions in covering our immediate ambitions and not sought to provide a platform for the future; we need to take our failings and see how our disenchanted populous can fit in with them; this is our opportunity to create opportunities for others; it would be criminal if we missed it.