SCHOOL leaving age 18 you must be joking

Dear Editor
The latest idiotic idea to come from our new labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown is that we should keep children at school till their 18 years of age. One wonders if he and his government have a clue what it is to be normal or maybe because he has had children very late in life he does not know what it like to have a 15/16 year old who does not want be at school, well he should go and ask a Teacher who will have to put up with young Men and Women who would rather be working. For that what 16/18 year old are, they are not children, at 16 they can smoke, they can get married, they can legally have children (under this government rather then deal with that problem they will bring the age down to 12 so at a stroke you will have no under agemothers), drive a motor bike, at 18 you can vote and die for your country.
Now a far better idea would be to let youngsters leave at 15 years as long as they have an apprenticeship or equivalent, which will include a day release where their education can continue but in a more adult environment. I have dealt with young people most of my adult life as a Judo/Sombo Wrestling Coach and at 14/15 the youngsters move up to our Senior section where they come involved with adults, this especially beneficial for young boys. Being involved with adults made them feel more mature and they acted accordingly, obviously not every adult pastime is encouraged my Judo pupils were never allowed to drink till they were 18 they were discouraged from smoking and taught respect for other people. I know you will say that is easy in my line of work because you have pupils who want to be there and that is true but that is exactly what the old apprenticeship scheme did it put young people mainly boys working with older people, people they would be with for as little as 40 hours a week, these people would become their mentors and friends without either of them realising it. I started work at 15 years and 3 months as an Agricultural Apprentice, after being out with my mates for the weekend I came back to work on the Monday my head full of rubbish planted by other adolescents of may age group, these ideas I would start bragging about in front of older work colleagues who would soon put me straight by giving me a verbal tirade, a kick up the backside or in extreme cases a cow pat hitting me along side the ear but there would always be someone who would tell me why I had spoken rubbish. Today teenagers only mix with their own age group and sadly believe all the hype that they talk and see “the blind leading the blind”.
If at 16 years of age a youngsters doesn’t opt to got back to education, doesn’t have a job he or she would go in the Forces for a year not as front line service personnel but as back up staff doing the mundane jobs.
Jobs being the answer but yet for a 16 year old to get even a basic job is becoming more difficult as foreign labour is pushing them out of the Labour market, I have been told that most farmers and companies who want low cost labour now refuse to take on British workers, it is easy to condemn youngsters for not working but if fellow countryman do not give them the chance what are they supposed to do.