But is there any need for all that?

But is there any need for all that? What’s the hurry? The labour market is not exactly begging for young newly qualified people. Why do we put such intolerable pressure on our young people? What do they want? Between the ages of 13 and 16 a great many children feel less like studying and learning than at any other time in their lives. The business of growing up is enough. They need time and space. Often, highly motivated children, whose love of reading has led them to read libraries of books, suddenly stop reading at this age. It doesn’t mean that they will stop forever. With any luck, after about 16 or 17, they can grow out of that phase, but under our present system of selection that’s too late. If they took the wrong course at the age of 14, then they may already be excluded from certain options. Parents are often driven to despair at children who, given the chance, spend half the day in bed and the other half getting dressed, but it doesn’t last forever. So why do we choose this period in their lives as the time to make or break them?