The problem - a golden opportunity
With there being around 1,000,000 young unemployed people and thousands of young people who do not achieve well at school, there is a golden opportunity.
Currently the lack of opportunity for our existing and future generations, costs the country billions. Desperation pushes people to crime. Unemployment costs in welfare. The lack of training means they are less able to contribute long-term. Depression and ill health can often result from the inability to operate within society.
People ask political parties how it is they will ensure the UK will transform its fortunes to maintain its position as a global economic powerhouse. After all, no one wants the economy to be underpinned by collateralized debt obligations surrounding subprime mortgages. As a Labour Parliamentary Candidate, I have my vision of what needs to be done.
Solution - believe in people's potential
The answer, in my mind, is to believe that the vast majority of people in this country are capable of great things. Obviously, some will always struggle. However, unlike Boris Johnson's belief, the many thousands failing in schools are not genetically inferior to those achieving top grades at Eton.
Once we believe in everyone's potential, we must invest in everyone's education so that they maximise their aptitude.
What is their potential? It is to facilitate the UK becoming a world leading innovator in applied sciences. If we train our people from a young age using initial government investment, we can export the resulting innovation to see economic output growth, employment growth, welfare reductions, crime reductions and improved social and physical health.
More specifically, invest right and the UK can become world leaders in:
- IT technology (the best computers, phones, entertainment equipment, science research equipment, security solutions etc)
- Transport technology (greener planes, cars and trains, faster and quieter transport methods etc)
- Renewable energy (cleaner, more efficient, more attractive, more long-term solutions etc)
- Pharmaceuticals and cures for illness (cures for cancers, aids etc)
- Engineering and mechanics (more efficient manufacturing equipment, superior building design etc)
The UK is in a fantastic place to do this because we have world leading research universities. However, investment is required in the thousands of people currently deprived of opportunity if we are to beat the international competition. Of course, we need short and medium-term solutions as well; such as high quality apprenticeships for people finished with education. However, long-term, no one should be excluded from the chance to contribute at the highest level. More educated minds means more creativity and solutions. If we act with long-term foresight now, the UK will win.
The practicalities
To start the UK's innovation revolution, I propose the following for debate:
1. TEACH THEM CONCEPTS - Don't patronise our young. Young people in the UK regularly deal with abstract concepts from an early age, whether it be following strange Japanese cartoons or computer games depicting a world alien to our own. For that reason, from a very young age, we should be communicating in summary form about the truly cutting edge of scientific research.
We should go into schools right from the start and explain how anti-viral medicines work, new magnetic train technology, super computers and different types of renewable energy. We do not need to make it overly challenging and it does not need to be assessed. It is an introduction to something fun and new that can sink into their minds to be reinvigorated in their career driven futures. This will create a culture that is not frightened of new ideas. Removing the intimidation factor of applied sciences could have a huge impact on what people believe they can do.
2. DISADVANTAGED YOUNG PEOPLE - It's hopefully no secret that many young people live in poverty. Whether it's social deprivation and struggling families, or material deprivation. For that reason, to enable these people to be just as successful as those attending elitist private schools, we should invest in them from the very beginning. That is when much of human brain development occurs. A maintenance and extension of Sure Start schemes could be the answer. This doesn't mean intensive formal training and I'm not proposing that toddlers tuck into books containing rocket science algebra. It means ensuring these young people are being read to, introduced to a broad vocabulary and filled with the notion that they can be anybody they want to be. Importantly, it also means hearing about the concepts discussed above as soon as possible; let's not keep it a secret for an Oxbridge elite.
This is not a woolly concept. Very few have the belief that they can be a nuclear scientist unless someone tells them from a young age that they can be. No one will have the belief that they can be a nuclear scientist if they have never heard of such a role.
At a more advanced age, the government could also invest in free summer schools for the less privileged. These would be designed to promote a comprehension of cutting edge research. This will excite young people and provide them with an awareness of career goals.
3. UNIVERSITIES IN SCHOOL - If you don't come from an environment where you have lots of successful role models or people who have knowledge about certain careers, then you are far less likely to know what options are available. It is this knowledge gap that plays a large part in inequality. For that reason, I would like to see top universities going into schools on a much bigger and more consistent scale to make it crystal clear the amazing opportunities available to people. By understanding what they need to do to achieve certain goals, their glowing careers won't be left down to chance.
At the same time, universities should be telling young people, well before the age of qualification examinations, what kind of grades are expected of them. More importantly, we need to explain how the most academically successful achieve their results. The vast majority do it through hard work, and unless people without role models have this explained to them, they might not work hard enough. This might sound ridiculous, as though it should always be obvious to people how hard they need to work, but it is not. It is like a sports team that believes training 3 times a week is enough, while not realising that the best train 9 times.
4. GOVERNMENT INVESTMENT - In order to beat international competition, the government must support innovation projects. Investing in cutting edge research will not only provide training opportunities for young people that might otherwise be out of work, it is necessary to achieve faster results.
Critics will no doubt exclaim that the UK has run out of money. My answer is this: a country that ignores the majority and the unemployed youth generation not only misses out on economic potential, it sets us up for huge societal costs down the line. This investment is not money that vanishes. It is money that makes far more in return, because the UK will export globally its innovation. Of course, the government already invests in certain projects, but to create an innovation nation, the scale in education and subsequent projects should be much bolder.
5. BUSINESS INVESTMENT - Existing businesses are also pivotal. After all, it is they who stand to benefit from the increased supply of highly educated labour. Businesses should enter more schools to tell them about cutting edge scientific research on a regular basis, make financial and intellectual contributions to early years educational investment and increase funding to universities and/or innovation hub projects.
6. INNOVATION HUBS - Places like Silicone Valley are world famous. They are hubs of talented people pushing themselves in a competitive and entrepreneurial environment to create brand new technology and ideas. There is no reason why the UK can't expand on its own innovation hubs. The key to this is always to invest in education first. Introduce the young to innovation concepts and make them believe they can play a part. Then we have a supply of the most important component of all; intellectual capital. Once we've taken this long-term educational step, we can invest in physical infrastructure. Help university laboratories with their infrastructural needs for our increased number of well shaped minds.
Making young people aware of these hubs is also vital to this step. Whether it is Twitter, visits to schools by new technological start-ups or private investors looking for talented minds, we must advertise to every young person the exciting role they could have to play.
Tom McNeil
Parliamentary Candidate for Meriden
Tel: 07791737943
Twitter: @mcneil_tom
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.
Twitter: @mcneil_tom
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.
