If you are arguing that Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland are recipients of EU largesse, consider this. Westminster could replace that largesse and still have loads left over, if/when billions no longer has to be poured into the EU blackhole.
Yes, they COULD. I'll not be holding my breadth...
Maybe, maybe not, but if Westminster and the devolved executives don't deliver, they can be voted out. The EU institutions cannot be.
Correct, and UK secondary schools will have to start teaching the "trades" again as was the case before the UK joined the EU.
Did they? remind me how this worked again?
How it worked: there was the 11+ exam at age 11 which was in effect a primary school leaving exam (think today's equivelant is called "key stage 2" now).
Academically inclined kids went to grammar school and did GCEs, while vocationally inclined kids went to secondary modern school and did CSEs including subjects such as plumbing, carpentry, technical drawing, bricklaying, cooking, home economics, hairdressing, etc., (subjects often deremined by sex in those days), which prepared kids for apprenticeships.
If such a system existed today it would probably be necessary to supplement "academic" and "vocational" with "technical/IT" and "business/enterprise" schools as well, as is the case in Germany and some other countries.
From 1970 to 1974, Heath's education secretary, Margaret Thatcher, started the process of shutting down grammar schools. Education secretary Shirley Williams continued the process in the 1974-1979 Wilson/Callaghan government.
Only a handful of grammar schools survived to this day, and as a result, have become highly elitist with parents moving house to be within a catchment area or shelling out for private tuition or both. These are likely to be richer parents.
There is a
perception that grammar schools are as good as or better than top "public" schools at no cost, and that comprehensive schools are not up to the mark. League tables appear to bear this out.
True or not? Who knows, ask a teacher, parent, student, university lecturer, employer, etc.. In truth it's probably highly variable geographically.
Frank
is there any evidence that British students want learn "trades" in school or anywhere else??
everything I've seen is that they want to be computer geeks, or designers or work in TV.............
This is the problem, but education needs to provide for all sorts, especially for what the economy needs.
Pushing 50% of students off to university to massage the youth unemployment figures downwards only serves to devalue degrees.
If the UK needs skilled labour from abroad, than a points-based immigration seems a sensible way forward, but it is impossible as long as the UK remains in the EU.