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Younger people have all the obvious advantages over older ones: decades ahead of them, unshakeable confidence in their superiority and good skin.
But the middle-aged, despite their saggy bits and their disillusion, have one thing going for them: they run the country, and so have the power to make young people's lives miserable if they want to. And they clearly do, for there is no other way of explaining the ordeal society puts aspiring university students through.
Every year, around the time that A-level results are published, the nation has a big debate about the system. Normally, the subject is grade inflation. This is very satisfactory to us middle-aged. Somebody finds a daft question in a media studies paper, we all laugh about it, and then we bang on about how things were so much tougher in our day. This makes us feel better but fails to address the flaws in a system that combines cruelty with inefficiency.
Exams are a necessary evil. Universities need some way of distinguishing the clever from the thick. But they get in the way of education and put too much pressure on people at too young an age. Most students get through them OK but some suffer breakdowns, while others flunk out and damage their prospects for life.
We could easily make the whole business less dreadful. For a start, there should be fewer exams. Since the introduction of AS-levels, children spend the last three years of their education cramming for exams. Teachers, as a result, haven't a hope of inspiring or interesting them. Better to test students only when they leave school, and make them do either GCSEs or A-levels but not both. Second, the design of the system needs to change.
At present, students apply on the basis of predicted A-level grades. In effect, they are being asked to bet on their results. If they underestimate their abilities, they'll end up at a worse university than they should be at. If they bet too high, and their grades are lower than their offers, they have to go into clearing and risk ending up with a place doing theology and accounting in Bootle or without a place at all. Better if students sat exams in the spring and applied once they had their results.
Third, the Government needs to stop encouraging more and more people to go to university. You do not need a degree to do most of the jobs in this country. Trying to get 50 per cent of young people into higher education is a waste of money -and, much worse, sets people up with ambitions that are likely to be frustrated.
Recently I was in a small second-hand bicycle shop. The young man behind the till was eager to discuss his degree in business studies. I was touched by his pride, and angry that the time and money he had invested in his education risked going to waste. If the middle-aged have designed the system as a way of getting back at the young, they are doing a good job. If they intend to help the next generation use its talents as effectively as possible, they aren't.
Harry Potter has no magic left now
When I take my children to see Harry Potter films, I try to conceal my despair at the awfulness of it all. This time I failed. The acting was as wooden as usual, the gimmicks grimly familiar and the plot, which normally drags one through the ordeal, had all the structure of a plate of scrambled egg.
I know the wizard single-handedly keeps our movie business alive, but if this is the best the British film industry can do I'd rather it died quietly.
Summer in a slump? Spend, spend, spend
A few weeks back I decided that the stair carpet, covered with dark stains of doubtful origin, had to go. The man in the carpet shop approached me with the air of a famine victim eyeing a dessert trolley, and offered me 25 per cent off, and a further 10 per cent off for good measure. I then decided that my walls — formerly magnolia, now with an interesting patina of cooking grease, fingerprints and crayon marks — had moved from casually bohemian to depressingly slovenly, so I got some decorators in.
The house is now sparkling, the job done on time and on budget. Last weekend I went shoe-shopping with my daughters. Instead of sailing past like duchesses, shop assistants crowded round, pressing bargains upon us. What with summer and the economic crisis, there has never been a better time to spend.
Yes, I'm proud to look like my lovely dog
Everybody's life is occasionally touched by glory, and mine was last weekend. The village where I holiday in Suffolk held its annual summer fête and dog show, and my dog won four rosettes.
There were at least 12 other entrants, so the competition was pretty hot. One of the awards was third prize in the “dog and owner looking most alike” class. I have, of course, taken every opportunity to boast about this to my friends and acquaintances.
Some shallow people have suggested that it is not necessarily an award that many women would want to win, particularly when the dog in question is small, round and very hairy; but I regard him as creature of great beauty, and wear my yellow rosette with pride.
Emma Duncan is deputy editor of The Economist
Reader views (1)
Emma Duncan is right. You don't need a degree to be a plumber, painter, construction worker etc, maybe a technical college of that sort is required.
If you want to become a language teacher, doctor, lawyer, scientist or whatever, then university is appropriate.
A London friend of mine was lucky that her high-achiever parents didn't push her and her siblings to go to uni. She has been working as a succesful PA for many years and has already paid her mortgage off! Same with her siblings!
- Cath, SE Europe, 18/08/2009 14:09
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