Stuff from the papers…

Sorry, I do keep meaning to write a blog post but I’ve been busy over the last few nights (admittedly some of it was watching The Apprentice!).

Anyway, both the Guardian and Independent appear to have done big features on “young people aren’t so bad” this week:

• Celebrations of our teens and The uplifting truth about Britain’s youth (Independent, Sunday)
• Young people special in Society Guardian on Wednesday

Also:

• Stewart Dakers on why compulsory national service is a bad idea (Guardian, Tuesday)
• And this, which is a year old but I only discovered today at work (I was doing some research on knife stats among young people, which for obvious reasons are difficult to confirm). If you read Speak Your Branes you probably end up wondering what the point of Have Your Say style comments on the bottom of news stories are. Well, I found the answer this morning. The top response on this article in the Telegraph, from Ruth Ray, is beautifully written and a brilliant assessment of what is happening to young people on our inner city estates.

Images courtesy of desvilla. Used under licence.

Participation doesn’t just mean parties

Last week Harry Phibbs, writing in the Guardian, attacked the UK Youth Parliament and other young participation organisations for wasting tax-payers money on a “state-sanctioned system of bogus school elections to create smug, tame ‘youth politicians’”. His central thrust is that young people should get involved in ‘adult politics’ rather than a “segregated, pretend version”.

Harry’s justification for why there is no need for organisations like UKYP and BYC is based on his personal experience of joining a political party and writing letters to newspapers. That’s great that he did, and there are many young people who do today. But the assumption that because he did and knows others can therefore means that any young person can is both naive and quite possibly elitist. It also assumes that the only way to be involved in politics is via an existing political party, and that young people should respond to existing issues rather than be able to set the agenda themselves.

I know nothing about Harry’s background (bar the fact he went to a comprehensive school), but I’m assuming at some point – either at school or through his home life – he learned about the political process and how he could get involved in it. Not everyone is as fortunate to be in that position, and many young people in the UK have parents who have little understanding of how to engage in politics, save for sticking a cross on a ballot paper once in a while (and even that is debateable). Citizenship education, where stuff like this is learned, was only formally introduced onto the curriculum within the last ten years. It’s provision remains patchy, partly because Harry’s party, the Conservatives, have strongly hinted that they would seek to remove it should they regain power.

Outside of the education service, only the Electoral Commission has the statutory remit to promote political participation, and their publicity is aimed squarely at getting the vote out (not even understanding what you are voting about). There is not a single penny spent within government on any kind of public education about standing for election, the right to protest, how to campaign and what your MP could do for you.

Harry might see this as a good thing: that spending tax-income on trying to widen participation is pointless. But from where I’m standing, as someone who is passionate about politics but finds both the current political system and the parties totally demoralising, I struggle to comprehend why giving citizens the tools and knowledge to participate in politics is anything but a ‘no-brainer’. A view echoed by the findings of the Power Inquiry.

So both UKYP and BYC are filling a role that parliament and political parties are failing to do: teaching people about how the political process works and giving them the tools and knowledge as to how to get involved in the political process. Where Harry sees “tame”, I see rational. Where he sees “smug”, I see confident. That Harry managed to pull only two names of note, both from several decades ago, suggests that the majority of graduates of these programmes aren’t career politicians but citizens who pursue other walks of life, just having the skills to take on the politicians at their own game should the need arise.

If Harry doesn’t like UKYP, BYC and the local youth councils that span the width and breadth of the country, perhaps he’d like to suggest an alternative?  From where I’m standing, it sounds like his vision is that unless you’ve inherited the knowledge and confidence to participate, and you believe in one of the established parties, then you don’t deserve an invite to get involved in politics.

As a side-point, Harry loses credibility somewhat with one of the laziest snides at students: namely that they “are too apathetic even to boycott lectures or hold a sit-in”. It’s a shame he (and the many others who use this argument) don’t appear to have given any thought to what successive governments have done to universities over the last 20 years, and the fact that those loans, tuition fees and living costs don’t magically get paid for these days. While he had the luxury of a juicy grant and free education that allowed him to spend his spare time involved in a sit-ins and protests, the average student in 2009 is spending around 20 hours a week in paid-employment. Protest is, unfortunately, a luxury of the rich.

Image courtesy of masyomo. Used under licence.

What should replace Go 4 It?

The BBC Radio 4 programme Go 4 It is being axed in May; ending Radio 4′s long-running association with children’s radio (traced back to Listen with Mother etc). There will still be occasional reading of children’s books “when children might listen”, plus of course some radio programming aimed at kids on BBC 7.

In his blog, Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer says that the problem was that kids weren’t listening. In fact, the average age of Go 4 It’s audience was 50. (Edit: The Guardian reports the RAJARs as 22,000 children out of an audience of 450,000).

Now many of those may be ‘noise-seeking listeners’, people using the radio as a distraction whilst they are doing something else. (Indeed, the only time I listen to Radio 4 other than via podcasts is when I’m in the car). But, I guess there are a fair few who actually tuned into Go 4 It, or at least made themselves available to listen, because they liked the subjects covered. There are, after all, thousands of people who love listening to the shipping forecast even though they live nowhere near the sea.

So, if the Radio 4 commissioners are reading this, here’s an idea:  Why not do a show about children and young people’s issues, even if it isn’t aimed at them? And, why not use young people to make the show? There are thousands of young people involved in media projects throughout the country (see Media Box, or the BBC’s very own School Report), and there are some really brilliant audio projects that deserve a wider audience. That’s not to say it’d just be young people’s projects, but produced and researched like any other programme, but on issues that young people care about.

It’d help counter the negative perceptions of young people in the media, an issue you know is serious when even the Guardian and the Daily Mail appear to agree. And it’d give the BBC access to a whole range of new stories, and involve that demographic that serious people at the corporation are worrying about “losing”.

As I suggested in my last post, one of the problems with today’s society is that we are driving a chasm between adults and young people – stopping them understanding each other’s issues. Programmes like Newsround and Radio 1 Newsbeat go some way to explain the adult world to young people; but there isn’t anything in reverse. Perhaps this is the time to introduce it.

And if they are looking for a BBC producer with a good background in youth media projects; they could start here. Other producers are, of course, available.

PS. If you didn’t see the news, Parliament voted to allow UK Youth Parliament to hold a sitting in the House of Commons. It was great to watch the issue being debated on BBC Parliament – let’s hope the sitting gets televised as well.

Images courtesy of eyejammy. Used under licence.

Cohesion isn’t just the responsibility of the young

Ted Cantle, writing in the Guardian recently suggests that young people are the solution for creating community cohesion.

The executive chair of the Institute of Community Cohesion makes a valid, if somewhat obvious point, that young people’s enthusiasm for integration is thwarted by the prejudices of older people; and it’s only through nuture that humans develop their negativity towards other people.

But, we can’t simply rely on young people to go out and do this work on our behalf. It’s our responsibility to support them, to promote what they want to achieve and to act in a way that demonstrates tolerance is the best way forward.

Photo credit: drp. Used under licence.