It’s that day of the year again when the media bursts with shiny bright teenagers fizzing with excitement about getting into ‘uni.’  

A-levels, T-levels and BTECs results set them on the rigid route they’ve been directed to since a primary school teacher told their parents they were bright.

Fast forward three years and that fizz might well be flattened.

After forking out silly money – or rather parents who can afford it - for ensuite ‘luxury’ apartments being built in university cities across the country, eye-watering tuition fees for a couple of hours a week in the company of an academic and facing a £50k-plus bottom line on the Student Finance account, graduation day might not feel as exciting and full of hope as A -level results day.

When the belief of a graduate job faded when they realised they didn’t fit the mould of a finance/management consultant/civil service/NHS graduate trainee and, at 22 end up working in a job they could have started at 18, they wish they had made different decisions.

Then seeing old classmates they commiserated with for not making the grade flying in careers they started as apprentices or trainees; the type of vocational and practical training they scoffed at because they had been deemed “academic” by teachers, whatever that means, put the whole ‘uni experience’ in perspective.

Parental and school expectation set out at an early age with no prospect of diversion is not helping young people. Off to uni, never mind the distractions isn’t the holy grail for all.
Neither is it relevant or needed by industry and business for our future workforce,

It’s long overdue to stop snootiness about technical apprenticeships and trade qualifications and investigate routes that suit the individual.

And businesses and industry need to get involved with schools and colleges to futureproof their own workforce by working with teachers and students to demonstrate alternative paths.

My heart sang to read about Norwich student Ben Gibbs who is taking his two As and a B in physics, maths and chemistry from Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form to start a five-year civil engineering apprenticeship course by Norwich-based Canham Consulting.

New Apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships are being developed all the time as business realises they don’t want graduate entrants and are going back to training their own from school and college.

University will always be right for many, but anyone unsure today should take a break and think it through properly. 

Find a temporary job, any job. Customer facing is best. Dealing with the public will teach lessons for life and delivers the best experience for whatever you decide to do.
Research jobs that weren’t in existence five years ago. There are a multitude of roles you never knew existed. 

Advice meted out in schools and colleges shaping choices needs to be questioned.  
It looks good for schools and colleges to push as many as they can on to universities and universities are desperate for students to bolster their finances with a reduction of international students.

But our young people are being brainwashed that different is second best, second class.
Try telling that to the plumbers, electricians, plasterers and builders who can name their price because there aren’t enough of them.

But to drop this obsession with university demands effort, commitment and planning from business and industry to work with schools and colleges.

They need the workers so need to get into the schools to inform teachers that it’s a changed world with new workforce needs.

We need to stop the sniffiness and embrace a new respect for the practical to keeps our

nation functioning and competitive.
Have you ever met a plumber regretting his or her apprenticeship and training on the job?

Plenty of graduates wish they had done life differently.

Great to take a stance on swearing

Hearing the F word in public and everyday conversation still brings on a wince.

The word has its place and it’s not on the street, the train, in the classroom or in the park.

Watching the word’s progression from an expletive to cause shock to common parlance and vaguely acceptable is depressing.

Thanet District Council has had enough and is threatening on the spot fines of £100 for swearing in the street. Kudos to them for making a stand to preserve public decorum and turn back the clock.

Hearing a couple shouting at each other – not arguing just communicating about the weekly shop with every word the F word – I wondered what people from the 50s and 60s would think of public behaviour and conduct today.

Shocked rigid, I expect.  

The council has used Public Spaces Protection Order that bans behaviour that might “distress” people. There’s plenty of that about. Good on them.

Visitors and residents in its area of Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs face fines for “using language of behaviour causing or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to any other person’ and congregation while being abusive, alarming, threatening, insulting, intimidating, harassing, distressing or causing a disturbance to others.

Considering all the above is witnessed and endured on our town and city streets every day, it’s time all councils followed Thanet’s lead.

Bring back dog licenses

Reports of two women being injured by uncontrolled dogs in separate attacks in Norfolk and the county’s open spaces overrun by dogs off leads shows the reintroduction of dog licences is well overdue and urgent.