This looks like the Ecological Fallacy.
So, you’ve got statistics that say children with exhibiting certain characteristics or associated with certain factors are statistically more likely to be unemployed later in life. This might true about the whole cohort.
That doesn’t mean it’s true about any one individual. You can’t distinguish which individuals for which it is true. Furthermore, unemployment can be due to factors completely independent of the child. They can’t control for that.
Interventions on the individual level are a crap shoot. If they address the underlying societal issues, more of the children will end up employed. But, that means social change especially to the distribution of wealth because we already know that poor people get a worse education and less educated people are less employable.
This is just a weird mix of “blame the victim” and Minority Report. Superficially, it looks like they are helping children. How many of these kids are going to find out the adults think they are already unemployable?
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So we’re now identifying:
- children as young as 5 in case they could be terrorists
- children as young as 5 in case they will be a NEET 15 years later
Coming soon:
- identifying children who question whether a sky god exists
- identifying children who might have same-sex affections
- identifying children who don’t cheer when they see a picture of a member of the royal family
The fuck is wrong with this country?
i don’t know, trying the get people help?
Evaluating a six year old based on their likelihood to perform as a worker is deeply fucked up, and identifying them for “help” to become employable is not what they need.
It’s addressing a problem from a backward position. Underemployment is objectively a problem with availability of work paying livable wages, so a reasonable solution would be addressing that fault, not pigeonholing children based on their likelihood to contribute to GDP.
i feel like you need to untangle two things: work itself, work being exploited for financial gain. there is nothing wrong with work itself, in fact if i cannot work and have to loitering around doing nothing all day, that will destroy me. on the other hand i despise the exploitation of labour for financial gain of the employer. that’s why i think exactly how this evaluation is conducted is very important, and it could identify children who genuinely need help (i.e. not in a becoming “a productive member of the society” kind of way).
so i’d prefer to wait and see what they come up with, instead of immediately jumping on it without further information.
I think you and I are on the same page, but everything I know about this country and government has stripped me of your optimism.
I decided, against my better judgement, to actually read past the headline 😉.
This follows on from some research that indicates kids are three times more likely to fall into unemployment after they leave school based on some indicators at an early age. So the idea is that these children get extra help to make sure they don’t end up in a lifetime of joblessness. Wouldn’t this be similar to spotting kids that are struggling with English or Maths at an early age to help them before it is too late?
Somehow according to Lemmy this is a bad thing 🤷
As an early childhood educator, I don’t think people should be evaluating children based on their future potential for employment.
If unemployment is an issue, focus on the workplaces that fail them don’t try to train children into being ideal workers.
This is backwards like banning children from social media rather than regulating the social media algorithms and holding the companies accountable.
The point of school is supposed to be education, this is not prioritizing education. Schools should not be drone factories turning children into obedient workers for the corporations.
Without knowing what they plan to do with children that are identified it is hard to say much more. But the point of school, surely, should be to prepare children for their future such that they can function in a society.
Imagine what you would be doing if you’re later in life classed as being Not in Employment, Education, or Training for anything (what is known as NEET). That doesn’t sound like a very fulfilling life. Giving people extra help such that they can go onto further education, or training for a skill (even if you take umbridge to the word employment) is surely a good thing.
What would you have happen to these children? If you could identify clear markers at an early age?
The solution is more resources per child with constant evaluation and alteration of the system and what it offers, it really is that simple. You do not need to label children as unemployable and put them on some list, that will never end well even if the original intentions were purely benevolent.
Let’s not get fixated on the employment part. There’s also not being in further education. And also not being in training (like an apprenticeship for example).
If you could identify a child that would later on in life struggle to either be in further education or training you’d help them, right?
The solution is more resources per child with constant evaluation and alteration of the system and what it offers, it really is that simple.
That sounds like what this is aimed at doing. Did you read somewhere that all they are doing is putting kids on a naughty list?
The Department for Education would also be asked to refresh its pupil premium guidance to emphasise that the extra money schools in England receive for supporting the most disadvantaged children could be used for tutoring and mentoring schemes for those at risk of becoming Neet.
Those absolute monsters!
I think everyone’s just so conditioned to reading bad news headlines that they assumed this was something sinister, when it actually seems like quite positive news (in theory at least)
Give the list of every children enrolled at school. Everyone is at risk of unemployment if governments keep focus on individuals being at fault for being unemployed, rather than ensuring proper conditions and training are available to avoid unemployment.
This sounds suspiciously like predictive policing
seems like a lot of missing information here. like what’s the methodology and what they are gonna do once they identified those at risk.
but in theory this can be a good thing if this means people are getting help early.
