Blaise Tapp: Let us celebrate our young people and not tear them down
This is the time of year when newspapers and websites are full of pictures of beaming young people with the trendiest of haircuts, who have the world firmly at their feet.
I’m not talking about the return of the Premier League, but the fact that we are deep into exam results season, which should be a time of national celebration but has instead become a cue for keyboard eeyores and jaded commentators to truly rain on the parade of hard working youngsters.
In years gone by, these misery guts, piped up every August that A-Levels and GCSEs had become far too easy and weren’t comparable to the exams that they had to endure some twenty or thirty years previously. These meanspirited, not to mention ill-informed, attacks have since been replaced by a slew of ‘what’s the point of university?’ comment pieces and social media posts.
My hope is that any teenagers with the misfortune to stumble across these diatribes, take them for what they are - nonsense ramblings from bitter folk whose best days are long behind them. It’s jealousy pure and simple but I fear that some of our bright young people might be deterred from following their chosen path.
I write as someone who didn’t go to university and instead embarked upon vocational training before landing my first job as a teenager in my chosen career of journalism. While I don’t do regrets - they are as pointless as me owning a comb - there have been times when I’ve wondered whether I might have benefited from three years at university.
I would have certainly met a different set of friends, heard alternative views, which is never a bad thing, and had even more fun than I did as a trainee reporter back in the mid ‘90s.
Much of the over-to-top criticism is levelled at ‘nonsense’ degree courses but this completely misses the point - higher education is supposed to broaden horizons and improve levels of knowledge. If someone wants to study folklore or ethical hacking and have a lovely time while doing it then, whose business other than theirs is it?
Being young is hard enough without the constant sniping from people who were also teenagers once and therefore ought to remember the constant feeling of uncertainty which goes with the territory.
Rather than ridiculing their choices and prospects we should be collectively celebrating the achievements of our brilliant young people while wishing them the brightest of future.