ONCE the prospect of a certificate and a handshake from the headmaster was all the incentive a student needed.

Today it takes an iPod and £100 in cash to persuade unemployed teenagers to sign up for a course intended to improve their job prospects. A further education college in Bournemouth has been inundated with inquiries from prospective students since it announced the reward scheme on Saturday.

Unemployed teenagers are being bought £170 iPod MP3 players with taxpayers’ money when they complete a course in “life and job skills”. The course is aimed at NEETS — teenagers Not in Employment Education Training or School.

The decision to tempt the youngsters back into education follows the introduction of a reward scheme at schools in Glasgow where pupils who choose healthy food earn points which can be saved to claim prizes such as MP3 players and Xbox games consoles.

The iPod initiative at one of Britain’s largest further education colleges was condemned by the Campaign for Real Education, an independent pressure group. Nick Seaton, its chairman, said the offer of a reward just for taking the course sent out the wrong message.

He said: “It looks like bribery. It tells young people that they don’t have to do anything unless they’re getting a sweetener for it, which is wrong. The money could have been spent better on books or getting more teachers into schools.”

Other incentives for the teenage recruits include payment of £50 for one day’s work experience a week, free travel, lunches and childcare and a £100 bonus plus the iPod when they complete the course. They will also receive another £100 if they sign up for another course.

The bill for the rewards, which could total £119,000 for the iPods and around £750,000 including the other benefits, will be met by the taxpayer.

The 14-week course at Bournemouth and Poole College is aimed at persuading those who have dropped out of education to start learning again. Called ”Step up 4 summer”, it will show 16 to 19-year-olds how to apply for jobs, give them interview tips and show them how to write a CV.

Julie-Ann Houldey, director of marketing at the college, which has 22,000 students, most of them part-time, said: “We don’t see this offer as bribery. This is about the incentivisation of a life and job skills course for a group of students who are not traditional learners. The decision to offer iPods was made by senior college managers. We conducted research and found that the iPod is this season’s must-have item for young people and the most attractive to them.

“We’ve had a lot of applications and phone calls already. There’s no limit to the number of people we can accept on the course, but there are 700 people not in education, school or training in the area and we could accommodate them all.”

Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, described offering iPods as an incentive to learning as “horrific”. He said: “Maybe these people shouldn’t be in education at all if the reason they are doing it is to get an iPod.”

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CHINA

From Jane Macartney in Beijing

ACROSS China traffic has been diverted, building work halted and tens of thousands of extra police have been deployed — all to ensure that secondary school children get the peace and quiet they need for this year’s university entrance exams.

This week more than 8.6 million teenagers will take their seats in hot, stuffy and uncomfortable classrooms for their only chance to gain a degree that will put them on a path to government office or business riches.

Southern Guangdong province ordered traffic away from many exam sites and banned construction work and blaring radios from streets near schools. Similar quiet zones have been set up in towns and cities across China. One Beijing neighbourhood was draped with red banners reading: “Build a quiet testing community”.

In the capital, more than 1,000 extra police took to the streets to ensure a smooth flow of traffic around schools in a city where cars and buses move at a snail’s pace and the hooting of horns is constant. Notices went out to drivers to give way to students dashing across the streets to reach exam rooms in time.

The pressure on children is intense. One 18-year-old student in the western province of Qinghai battered his mother to death with a stone during an argument after he refused to take the exam. In an eastern coastal town, a boy committed suicide by taking poison.

Parents were told not to pile too much pressure on students, most of whom are only children born under China’s strict “one couple, one child” policy and carrying the hopes of an entire family.

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