This weekend, like thousands of others, I accompanied a sixth-form pupil on a university open day visit. It happened to be to my alma mater, Exeter. Whatever he and his friend made of studying sciences at a buzzing campus in a cultured city, the conversation in the long drive back veered towards Alan Milburn’s report into the “lost generation” of one million young NEETs (not in employment, education or training).
How might that influence their choice of university and course? Our teenagers need as much help as they can get in their decision-making – and not necessarily from parents, whose university experience was, literally, last century.
As a sixth-form tutor, it’s my role to help them professionally. Many readers will recognise the period in which 16- to 18-year-olds must engage with the UCAS entry process of personal statements, references, EPQs and more can be the most stressful of their children’s young lives.
They must make decisions that might affect their employment and financial futures – plus their mental health, cultural taste and lifelong social and other networks. They must do so, conscious of the ever-weightier debt burden they will incur and aware of parental anxiety that can sometimes explode into tense conversations.
