NEET [noun]: a person not in education, employment or training. Specifically…young people.

I decided not to go down the academic route, like many young people now. After dropping out of a shockingly unproductive college course, aged 16, I moved to Surrey to find a job, soon blagging some impressive employment. From then on whenever some 17 year-old guy used the chat-up line, ‘what college you at?’ I’d gobsmack them with, ‘Actually I don’t go to college. I work at Shepperton Film studios.’ I thought I’d done it. I’d got my first foot on the ladder to something exciting.

However, after a year working there, it emerged the only way I was going to get promoted was if someone died. There were no talks of my glorious future; there simply wasn’t room for a plucky youngster with nought but good GCSEs. Luckily, thanks to my own geeky desires, I had started night-time A-level classes at Richmond College. I took my exams a month after leaving Shepperton and moved to London. Surely with some eye catching work experience AND A-levels, an employer would snatch me up to be trained as their protégé? But no: I spent more than a year job hopping from unsatisfying roles to only-did-it-for-the-money jobs, to being conned and filling out an employment tribunal application…all dead end jobs with no pathway up.

At the least, I got some volunteering and work experience on my C.V. I had also, again, felt that unyielding need for knowledge and been studying part-time at the Open University.

But broke, waiting for a court case and sleeping on friends’ couches, I took what I felt was the only way out: I applied for full-time university.

I’d previously viewed universities as the playgrounds of the middle/upper classes. The escape from parental clutches to be spoon fed into adulthood. Not the place for someone who flew the nest four years ago, had work experience and defined career goals. But what choice did I have? It provided accommodation, funding and most importantly…a way up and out.

I’ve not been a ‘NEET’ for more than a month consecutively, but if I’d parents to live off whilst trying to figure out this new ‘university only’ loop hole, I certainly would’ve been a NEET for those discovery years.

But why is it becoming increasingly hard for young people to find their place in the working world? As I learnt from my own experiences, you cannot ‘work your way up’ anymore. If you start of as the tea maker when you’re 16, you’ll probably still be there when you’re 22. I was told a while ago that it’s actually possible to get a degree in David Beckham! Employable…? This is an extreme example, but universities are now offering courses in things like make-up/dance/events management. These all used to be things you just did. You got a trainee job and just did it. Now you need a degree before you dream to aspire to be anything more than a glorified secretary (and there are now college courses for that too!). The closing of the government run job centre for teenagers, Connexions (the service that helped me get the job at Shepperton) reiterates the message loud and clear: the practical way in is no longer viable.

But isn’t it a good thing academia is so widely available? Not if you never wanted to be academic – and certainly not if you want to stay out of debt. Ah, debt. How convenient we’re running up large debts for our career training – when you used to get paid for it. The realisation you’re being conned into paying off national debt with the wizardly curtain of Oz being advertised as the ‘choice’ for a better future.

The bad news isn’t even over yet: the job market is still in disrepair. Graduates are finding it increasingly hard to find the well-paid jobs they got into debt and spent three years studying for – leading to an indebted population that’s over qualified for the jobs available. The gap in the market needs to be filled, but the economic (or should I say false economic) situation is affecting businesses to the point where they’re simply in no position to take on talented youngsters, forcing those of practical ability to metamorphosis into academics or become NEETs. Needed are decent pay packets coupled with training/opportunity. It’s not much to ask that talent won’t be overlooked simply because the company ‘just doesn’t have the payroll.’ It’s not right to push the majority of a generation into vocational degrees that burden them with around £50,000 of debt, when they should’ve been able to just go to the job centre.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 15:45 by OpinionPanel and is filed under Article of the Month. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Permalink.