This month, about half a million 18-year-olds around the UK will be packing their bags ready to start university. The latest figures show that 47% of young people from state-funded schools will progress into higher education by age 19; but the same figure for children who grew up in care is just 14%. This is the “care ceiling” that holds back young people who have had the worst start in life. A new report published by the children and families unit at Civitas suggests it will take more than 100 years to close that gap and break this care ceiling at the current rate of progress. It doesn’t have to be this way – and it would take only a few relatively simple reforms to make a huge difference.
Astonishingly, the proposal is not to sort out how crap council care is. Surprise!
Do send them to uni though.
Are we allowed to point out that, as a general though not absolute rule, kids in care are deeply thick and utterly unsuited to education as a result of being born to thick, feckless, drug- and drink-addled mothers inseminated by thick, feckless, drug- and drink-addled wasters?
There are ways to reform our country, and they are quite simple, but I don’t think the children and families unit at Civitas would be in favour.
Whoever they are they’ll be far better off not going unless they have a good reason to burden themselves with debt to get a degree nobody will GAF about.
“…going to university shrinks the pay gap between care experienced people and others. Eighteen months after graduation, it found, graduates who grew up in care earn only 2.5% a year less than graduates who didn’t – that’s compared to a difference of a third for those who haven’t been to university.”
It’s at least possible that the pay gap is caused by having the talent and work-ethic to get into university, rather than by the university experience.
However, the proposed measures seem reasonable to me.
… says the underprivileged black female who has nevertheless got into the Lords. The answer to lack of achievement (attainment is probably the word in educational circles) seems always to be to lower standards; and we wonder the country is in decline (sorry, forgot: that’s Brexit).
How much of the underachievement is due to getting the same amount of support after leaving “care” as other teenagers get and how much is due to their treatment before entering “care”? If Local Authority “care” lived up to expectations, kids leaving “care” would still marginally underachieve their potential. All the social services intervention in their late teens that the Grauniad wants will not eradicate the damage done in their pre-school years.
There is, of course, still the elephant in the room – their potential, like the colour of their eyes and of their hair, is inherited.
“The Guardian contacted more than 100 local authorities in England to ask the cost of their most expensive children’s home placement. Of those that replied, many said they had at least one child whose care cost £10,000 a week or more”.
My Mum and Dad didn’t spend £10,000 on me for the 20+ years I was living with them.
Having spent the early part of my life in the care system and I’ve seen the reports that stated I was below average intelligence, thick and not worth wasting time on, oddly enough after being adopted and having to take extra classes and have a lot of help at home I caught up to my classmates after a couple of years. Writing kids off and giving them no chance is part of the issue, also aging out means no support and the necessity of having to earn a living
@BniC
I don’t know if that’s a response to my comment, but clearly there are intelligent kids in care. I’m talking about the average. I’ve no doubt that it is technically feasible to identify those kids (and even the thick but willing) and help them make the most of their lives, jiust as it’s technically possible to have state-run schools educate kids properly, but it seems to be beyond the UK state even at the current eye-watering rates of expenditure.