Labours plans to focus schooling more for working life, time to end this conveyer belt of workers for profit

In the papers today on sunday one of the Labour partys first new policies from its think tank of new policy ideas has formed and yes it is one i am dead against already.

Not its principle as helping people to be ready for work is important of course but the fact that this is more tinkering with the capitalist system to create a mass workforce to be making more profits for the few not the many.

Any secondary school pupils not planning to go to university would be given a clearer "route into work" under Labour party plans for a new education contract between the individual and the state.

Andy Burnham, the shadow education secretary, will this week reveal plans which would aim to give every secondary school pupil a path to employment if they met a set of required standards under a revamped curriculum more geared to the world of work.

The idea, one of the first to emerge from Labour's policy commissions, reflects its view that current thinking is geared too much to those heading to university and leaves the "forgotten half" languishing with little hope, having studied subjects that are too often ill-suited to modern working life.

Burnham's idea would involve a radical reshaping of the curriculum so that it offered a much wider choice of subjects than those included in education secretary Michael Gove's English baccalaureate. More vocational subjects would be included, such as engineering, business studies and information and communications technology.

"Latin is in and engineering is out [of the baccalaureate]. Why? It is the thinking of the 1950s," Burnham said. "I want to give a clear message of hope to every young person that says: if you work hard and get up to the required standard, you can go on to something of value."

While stressing the ideas were still in the planning stage, he made clear that a further expansion of apprenticeships in the public and private sectors would be needed if the government was to meet its obligations under the contract.




This is all well and good but just dealing with the initial thoughts, Where are these so called jobs going to come from Mr Burnham ? and who is going to fund these ideas with school budgets being cut hugely during the con-dem rule.

But this brings me to my main point that i disagree with the way capitalism works, this goes without saying but one of the worst parts of it is the fact we dont go to school to learn or to further our knowledge at all its all false that we do. In reality as this article from the Guardian confirms and Labour confirm going to school and learning is all to get you ready to work. To become that cog in a wheel of a profit making company. In other words to begin exploiting others. All my time through school i was discouraged in doing things that might help others rather to focus on myself and my own goals. This is capitalism at its very worst. I may sound cynical by saying this but i firmly believe our schools are not there to help us learn and further our knowledge in general. They do to some extent but its all geared around getting you in teh frame of mind to being a worker and as a result you will be joining the millions already oppressed out there who face a tough life working all hours under the sun just to get by. What a existence really you may say. Sadly this is the grim reality of what the tories and new labour want from us out of our school life.

All the time i was at school i was constantly asked what do you wan to do when you leave school. I still dont know to this day, does this make me less normal ? no not at all many dont know what they want to do when they leave school. But i do work now and its good but i dont enjoy it, i work because i need to not because i want to or enjoy it.

Under socialism learning and school life would not be limited to say the age of 18 then you go and get a job. The cut down in the working hours a week to a initial limit of 35 hours per week decreasing as quickly as we can to even less will provide millions of jobs and mean we have plenty of time to socialise, learn, take part in a trade union and get involved in community schemes and building society for the better.

This is the kind of world i'd rather live in, not the one where the next pay cheque means everything and what grades you get in school determines where we end up in life. I wanta fair society for all not just the few. This can only be achieved i believe through full democratic socialism where the economy is run in the interests of the many not just the few.