It is scandalous that fee paying parents get no tax relief .
Private school kids subsidise those at state schools and yet all the envious/jealous political classes want to do is close the independent schools. If the state monopoly cannot perform using private schools as inspiration - and it doesn't appear to be aspiring to that even with the fuel of high taxation and fee paying parents subsidising it - privatise it. If we regard extended state schooling as increasingly desirable simply to keep otherwise unemployed youth off our streets, how wrong can we get?! We need radical action in education in this country. And the politicians should stop using it as a political football because that is what has ruined state education. By the way, everyone in my household are attending, or used to attend, state schools...

GC, Harrogate, UK

Elaine Aaron - psychologist - has written extensively about sensitivity in human beings stating that 20% of the population are highly sensitive - its hard enough being a teenager but when 20% have to deal with highly sensitive nervous systems as well its even worse. Schools are geared towards the 80% of people who are less sensitive - with chaotic environments and non stop pushing for targets to be met.

If Elaine Aarons research is to taken into account then our schools automatically fail 20% of us

Jill Clay, Scunthorpe, North Lincs

It's not just the ASBO set. I hated school, I was bullied by other pupils as well as staff and felt bored, but, I could see the point of O levels - I left school with 8. Sixth form was another matter - i felt out of control, did not see the point in wasting 2 years of my life and hated every minuite.

I left 2 years later with one A level grade E and clinical depression for which I am still recieving treatment 20+ years later.

I still fail to see why we are obsessed with education being linked to age in this country.

The age to start school should be between 4 and 7 - not all children are ready for chool at 5, some are ready at 4. Children should learn elementary skills before going onto secndary school - some children will achieve this in a couple of years others will take longer. We should provide propper training in real skills alongside academic qualifications and training can be offered in the workplace not just in school.

Sash Smith, wolvrhampton, west midlands

Minette, as usual, hit the nail on the head. FE Colleges in Britain are already overrun with the 'ASBO set' (to use her phrase) because of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) which draws in kids who would otherwise have to go to work. The EMA offers them the prospect of £30 a week to do little or nothing. Slowly but surely, the premises are trashed, the language, manners and respect for staff deteriorate, and after two years yet another batch of illiterate, workshy, yobbish proles pour out on to the streets of Britain. Well done New Labour...!!!

Alan Brown, Selby, UK

When ever there a is virtual monopoly such as education, this is the result..It is the same here. All the money is spent on new administrative buildings and sports centers. Then take into the fact that education does not attract the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. Add in educational 'fads', plus a left wing agenda, and there is your recipe for disaster. In the UK you are lucky on one thing. You do not pay for illiterate in their own language illegals.. It is town alone the cost is $1,000,000,000 per year.

Desmond Taylor, Houston, USA Texas

Today we have many examples of organisations which are run by charismatic individuals who turn these young people around. Whether their core operational tactic is discipline or love, or a combination of both, they work. By which I mean, these young people return to normal learning environments and prosper.
The key question therefore for society is how do we propagate this sort of visionary leadership in all our schools, all the time?
I have run out of space here but readers can visit www.GreatSchoolsForEveryone.com to find out how introducing private sector competition and spare capacity , into the public sector monopoly of state education, would establish a virtuous circle that will help address the fundamental issue: which is inadequate school leadership.

David Clancy, Fletching, East Sussex

It is clearer why schools fail some children when one realises they were not set up for the benefit of children and to bring forth the best of what is within each of them, but to feed the needs of business and government to have good, compliant workers and consumers. The children who have difficulty are often boys and the more rebellious of girls. There is no sadder sight than a child being dragged, kicking and screaming into a system they depise "for your own good". They are usually the children who are more independent thinkers and those that the country can least afford to turn towards negativity and a fear of questioning authority. Works well for the status quo, however, because once you teach them at age 4 or 5 that they have no choice but to accept someone else's authority and distrust their own they rarely are able to escape the resultant mental prison for the remainder of their lives. Check out John Taylor Gatto if you want to understand the true purpose of organised schooling.

Victoria Malcolm-Story, Toronto, Canada

Congratulations on a stimulating and thought provoking article.
I assume that the majority of Sunday Times readers have attained some elementary education in english, and therefore it saddens me and strengthens your case when I read comments on your article that are presented without punctuation, and unable to tell the difference between "there" and their".

Maris A. Rolands, Le Muy, France

I don't get this "eighteen year olds can't read and write business" (no comments on the bad grammar there please)! I teach in a university, by no means a big, prestigious or famous one, and all of my students can read and write. OK, so they're not latter-day Tolkiens but they are comprehensible (unlike, say, Shakespeare, whose spelling was pathetic by today's standards). I suspect that this attitude is the result of one of two things 1) A media frantic for scare stories 2) an attempt to hide the fact that the Russell Group is currently full of universities that would disgrace a banana republic and churn out graduates intellectually incapable of finding their noses with the aid of a mirror. I know which one my money's on!

Huw, Aberystwyth,

Although i agree that the school system is in a shambles,through non curricular teaching,ie political correctness run amok.I feel the real reason behind the raising of the school leaving age is one of employment,or lack thereof.The longer the government keeps people out of the workforce the better the unemployment figures look.

Paul O'Sullivan, waterford, ireland

Absolutely correct Minette. Those young people who wish to study will be disadvantaged by those illiterates who have had the extra schooling forced upon them. New Labour's approach to education is sinister and lunatic. Children at kindergarten being taught about homosexuality, 'sex education' lesssons for five year olds, the constant 'dumbing down' of examinations and the social engineering to ensure places at good schools and universities go only to New Labour's chosen ones. No wonder the nation's best and brightest are fleeing this country in droves. That of course is probably part of the plan, to produce an underclass subservient to the State in the form of New Labour. Cameron and the Tories have much work to do.

Brian Carroll, Hong Kong, China

It's indicative of a government that has lot the plot, totally. Nothing more to add is there?

Ronnie, shrewsbury,

Regarding rich kids going on expensive outings why not have schools aimed at unteachable kids at least here it could be run effectively aiming all the right subjects at the disruptive kids as mentioned in your article,but lets not kid ourselves my son goes to a school where the teachers in my opinion do not want to be there not all of them but who can blame them lets be honest if you`ve got a classroom full of kids who basically do not want to be there who`s behaviour is out of control would you want to teach them the teachers basically just want to get through there day or the lesson.
Regarding different areas of education my son recently went along to see a shakespearian play this was backed up with some homework to be quite frank i know william shakespere was this great man many years ago but to be quite frank i believe the teachings of this type of english is wasted on some schools my sons school included in terms of relevance to these young people

Simon Townsend, Mileoak/East Sussex, United Kingdom

Quite right. The education system fails the children. Some years ago I taught in a sink school where an Ofsted inspector (brave man) as a preliminary to his investigation asked for the whole of year 7 to sit a standard IQ test including non-verbal papers. The results were astounding. The non-verbal curve was only insignificantly biased to the left; verbal reasoning tests showed the intake to be 4 years behind chronological age. Some children of high intelligence failed even to read the instructions accurately. When I commented to the inspector, he replied, "I'm in the wrong place. What, in the name of God do the primaries think they're doing?"

He was right. When I went to infant school 60 yrs ago we could all read by the end of the year, many of us by Christmas. This was not done at the expense of other activities; art, Nature Study, dancing etc all had their place. A modern infant classroom is by contrast a dismal place, a junior classroom even more boring. No wonder they fail.

Michael Bruce, Selby, Yorkshire

The problem with education is teachers. I know that this will cause fury among the so called 'profession' but I'm still going to say it. Until it becomes a vocation again instead of a breeding ground for, "mummy was a teacher and daddy was a Headteacher", ( both of whom may have been absolute rubbish), nothing will change. Teaching staff can be cynical, unwilling to put themselves out and treat the children like something under their shoe. I don't care how loud the teaching profession shout to defend themselves it remains the case that it requires more than just imparting knowledge. I have observed some very suspect teaching and some very suspect lack of it. Teaching staff in secondary schools sometimes do not know who the children are unless they refer to a mark book and that is why we are losing so many of them. There is no real desire to keep them on board. If the child becomes difficult the job becomes difficult and like a lot of people teachers like an easy life.

judy, Liverpool, england

As an ex-teacher, ex-school governor & now parent of 4 young children, I have abandoned all hope in the "National Qualifications Program" which used to provide education.

We started home-educating our children about a year ago now, and have seen them race ahead of their peers. They also now love learning - a far cry from the disaffected, disenfranchised morons they would have become if institutionalized in classrooms for days on end where the teachers all cater for the lowest common denominator.

David Ford, London, England

What is likely to be achieved in those 2 extra years? If someone can't write or count properly by then, 2 more years spent annoying students who actually want to learn isn't going to help anyone

sam, farnham, UK

The chief aim of this policy is to abolish the gap year, by which privileged children get some deserved time off, poor but enterprising children work their way round the world, and all of them grow up so that universities receive something more mature than an infant.

If children know something of the world before they go to university, they may judge what the universities offer them and find it wanting.

If children experience life and grow up a little, they may not vote for us once they're old enough.

Joe Bruno, London,

Bring back national service. i did five years in the army which set me up for life, allowing me to travel, work and buy my house without any need from bank of mum & dad

John, Dunstable, britain

I can't work out whether the Blair idiots are trying to solve the jails crisis by turning schools into prisons or the schools crisis by turning prisons into schools. Either way I don't think much of their chances.

Christopher Holland, Canberra, Australia

This sounds like a call for citizenship training for the young, a course of action I would wholeheartedly support. Take young people at the age of 17-and-three-quarters and put them on an "outward bound" style course for three months. They should be taught on the basis of the "Back to the Fifties" or "Brat Camp" programmes that have appeared on TV over the past couple of years. In these the kids routinely kick up an enormous fuss at the beginning, but are a changed bunch at the end, most clamouring to stay on, or at least introduce into their normal schooling some of the disciplines and methods used. They are also more respectful, more motivated and more self-aware. It would costs a lot to provide this kind of training for every young man and woman, but consider how much the country is paying in one way or another for anti-social behaviour whose next stage is actual crime, then violent crime, then a permanent criminal record.

Mike Mitchell, Spalding, England

At junior school my son was identified with a high IQ. He did very well at school until age 14. His GCSE results were OK but disappointing. His A level results won't be good. He hates school; is bored ; finds the lessons dull and tedious and above all wants to earn some money so he has a reasonable social life and can run a car. He planned on university, but is now scared of spending three years studying and coming out with a large debt and little prospect of a good job.That's what this Government has done to our sons. When will they realise that boys in particular need to have practical, hands-on lessons that prepare them for life in the workplace and where their skills will be appreciated. My son has taken on and stuck at a part-time job; found ways of generating money through his talents and is working hard at a voluntary position which interests him. I know he will succeed in whatever he chooses to do.The school system has destroyed his morale and belief in his own abilities.

Donna Walker, Effingham, England

A brilliant article, Many of us parents and pupils have been saying exactly the same but "those who know best" seem to be on a different planet. Is there a planet "Politico"???

David Madley, Alicante, Spain

Why should parents, teachers in sixth forms, students in the very same, employers and even the16 - 18 year olds who wish to leave school have to be fined, or even imprisoned because Blair's cry of education! education! education! has failed so lamentably. It is so typical of this crass government to blame everybody but themselves for their blathering ineptititude and incompetence.

David West, Templecombe, Somerset

Thank you, Minette. Please send a copy direct to Alan Johnson.

Young people enjoy challenges, both physical and intellectual; the difficulty is in presenting a challenge suitable for each child. A start could be made by putting an adventure playground into every school, and developing a culture where the inevitable cuts, grazes, and even broken bones were accepted as a normal part of a child's development. Has the time come when we can escape from the trap of fear and blame which currently hampers any attempt at worthwhile education?

Gordon Cardew, Norwich, UK

Is there the possibility that two years in a specially designed cadet force, the army, or maybe the equivalent of subscription, could be the final option for these teenagers who cannot settle into any other worthwhile pathway?

Examining how other European countries handle their national call-up systems for young people could offer a solution.

Annie, Bath, UK

What most of these young people need is the discipline. Disciplinel was part of the training we took for granted some years back.
To get any education at all then was difficult, ,and was at a premium. It was therefore valued much more than today.
Keeping young people at school who do not want to learn will serve no benefit to themselves, or to society in general.
You can take a horse to water but you van not make it drink.
In the past children could leave school at 14 years to take up employment of some kind or other.
It was their choice.
Again, discipline was learned by national service.
It is appreciated that the professional servces of today do not want such people, but this is one way our armed forces can maintain their strenght in this difdficult world.


Bernard Parke

Bernard Parke, GUILDFORD,