By Gabriel Princewill-
The West Midland and Police Crime Commissioner has expressed concerns that underachieving pupils could be influenced by bad crowds during the void between the easing of the UK lockdown and when they return to school on September.
David Jamaeson today warned that young underachieving people who are not in schools could be easy prey for older criminals who could recruit them into gang culture.
Mr Jamaeson, was reacting to the recent lockdown easing by British prime minister Boris Johnson and the associated road mapping he gave featuring the government’s phased plans for pupils to return to schools. The prime minister stated that infant and primary schools will be first to resume their education in June, leaving it to speculation that older pupils are likely to wait until September before resuming their education.
Mr Jamaeson, a former headteacher who later became an MP before becoming a police and Crime Commissioner in 2014, told The Eye Of Media.Com he was concerned about the ramifications too much free time away from school until September could have om impressionable underachieving youths .
He told The Eye Of Media.Com:
” the prime minister hasn’t indicated that children in years 7-9 could return to school until September. This would leave a whole cohort of pupils without an education at a critical time for a whole six months. The government need to address how they will ensure that these young people will be ready to resume their education in September and to look at ways they can be educated in the meantime.
For those younger people currently of school age but appear to not be returning to school until September, we need to look at distance learning and how they can access that learning.
One of the main issues young people face, in particular those who are underachieving, is the lack of good quality employment and additional training. Those who were employment but may find that getting a job in the coming weeks and months difficult and we need to ensure that they do not steer into criminality.
In the 1990s and late 2000s when youth unemployment was high we had a whole range of measures in the new deal for jobs and Future Jobs Fund which included paying employers a small grant to take on young people, something similar could be done now to ensure that our young people are given opportunities to thrive”.
Transition
Speaking of how to manage youths in this period of transition between the easing of the lockdown and their return to school, the police Commissioner said:
”The advice is that people should stay at home where possible, the vast majority of young people are keeping to these rules. It’s not enough that we say these young people need to stay at home, we need to find ways to ensure that young people have some positive activity to engage in.
There is no reason to hang around on the streets, or in large groups or with more than one person from another household. Young people need to follow the government advice the same as everybody else, to protect those that we care about, staying at home where possible remains the best way to stop the spread of the virus”.
Headteachers across the UK have been complaining about the risks of resuming schools too soon because of concerns about the virus, but falling rates of infections in the UK has led the education secretary, Gavin Williamson to remain positive about his decision to send pupils back to school to receive an education, rather than be on the streets where they can be prone to dangerous peer group pressure.
Distant learning is a necessary alternative in emergency times when conventional system of education is no longer readily accessible, but instituting a viable framework for the myriad of individuals that need it is another matter. At least it raises the issue for the powers that be to contemplate, if not device or contemplate a practical way forward.
This might be a call for innovative ideas from West Midland Councils and indeed multiple others across the country in these times, if they have the funds to support productive initiatives.
West Midlands-Pcc-gov-uk