"It's time to help a lost generation of Scots children"
Sir Tom Hunter
The Scotsman, February 21st, 2006

“Congratulations, you’ve just had a baby boy, he is 90 percent certain to be unemployed when he leaves school in 16 years’ time and indeed for the rest of his life…”

It’s not the greeting you’d hope for from the doctor, but in the harsh reality of some of Scotland’s worst socio-economic areas, it could be true.

Our system – in health, education and social services – serves 80 percent of our young people well.  However, not the bottom 20 percent.  Many of these children can be predicted, from the tender age of five, to be NEET (not in education, employment or training) by the time they leave the system at 16.  Often, they leave well before, destined for a lifetime of misery, unemployment, often ill-health and sometimes crime.

It is this preventable human tragedy that brought us together yesterday to launch the Smith Group.  We stand shoulder to shoulder with Jack McConnell, Nicol Stephen and, we hope, every other politician, local authority and health trust to say that this has to stop and we will do our utmost to make that happen as soon as we possibly can.

It is the ultimate public-private sector partnership and, if it succeeds, which we are determined it can, then Scotland will – as it has and continues to do in enterprise education – lead the world in eliminating NEET.

We will do that by working together, embedding excellence, building in more innovation and driving change where change is needed.  But let us be very clear that this is not a new initiative; this is a drive to use resources already in existence in a better, more effective manner.  It aims to join up practice, free the best ideas and offer them across the system; build on what we know works, but make it happen – and fast – and bring in global best practice and scale it quickly.

We will not hang about – the injustice of this demands that we do not accept excuses in delivering on a plan that will offer hope, not heartache, to these children and their parents.

Of course, it would be easy to simply moan and blame someone, but the “it wisnae me” mentality and blame culture has to be set aside.  Our public servants must be freed to excel and “can do” must be the mantra.

If we don’t solve this problem, Scotland, for many generations to come, will be simply debilitated by the economic drain and social malaise the NEET issue visits upon it year after year.

Some 12,000 to 14,000 at any time between the ages of 16 to 19 are lost to a system that does not serve them.  It is appalling.  Young people are NEET not because they want to be, but because we cannot effectively engage with them at the right stage of their development and with the correct opportunities.

And while we must deal with those already in NEET in an effective and positive manner, we must also stem the flow of young individuals in becoming NEET.  That will be the Smith Group’s core focus.  That figure has not altered for decades, so now is the time for it to stop.

To use a retail analogy – which is what I know best – if 20 percent of your customers don’t buy in your store, or don’t come back, you either define a new product mix or a new store to cater for them.

The reality is we have a great education system for 80 percent of our children, but 2 percent of them are checking out of it before our very eyes – so what can we do about it?

We can build on the curriculum review, Determined to Succeed, and Schools of Ambition, extend the delivery of Columba 1400, Young Enterprise, and enable existing best practise to flourish across the whole system.  But join it up – the sum of the parts argument works, so let’s listen to it.  In turn, bring in global best practice from overseas – find it, deliver it and move on.

Every parent wants their child to shine, they will grasp at anything to make that happen – let’s hold their grasp warmly.  We need to be far more effective in engaging with parents, not just their children.

And we need answers to hard questions.  Should we really expect a child we know who is likely to be NEET, and hence leave school with no qualifications, to go to secondary school and take on ten subjects when they have little chance of passing any of them?

I know from my many meetings with children, that if you can engage them at a level that interests them, they will stay engaged.  We need to invigorate the system so that it fits them, not expect them to fit it, because one size simply does not fit all.

Sir Robert Smith is not a man to take on challenges lightly, not indeed are the rest of our board.  The Scottish Executive has taken a big and bold risk in engaging the Smith Group on this agenda; our promise is to be very direct in delivering on that engagement in a transparent manner, warts and all.  We will not leave stones unturned in pursuing a a solution to this issue, nor will we avoid pointing to those who seek to delay or undermine progress.

Scotland’s children, all of them, deserve the right to be all that they can be.  That is a simple right we, as a nation, must honour.  Opportunity must prevail and the hideous acronym of NEET has urgently to be confined to the dustbin of history.

**the Smith Group is chaired by Sir Robert Smith and includes Sir Tom Hunter, Jim McColl OBE, Willie Haughey, Chris van der Kuyl, John Mulgrew (director of education, East Ayreshire) Roy Jobson (director of education, Edinburgh) Peter Galloway CBE (headteacher, Trinity Academy), Christine Wilson (headteacher, Langside Primary) and Ewan Aitken (education convener, COSLA).

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