UK not a child-friendly country, says ex-Children’s Commissioner
Tue, 19 Jan 2016 11:36:00 GMT
Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green Kt, former first Children’s Commissioner for England, criticises UK investment in children’s education in the earliest years of a child’s life.
AS a nation, the UK demonises its young people and doesn’t care about them enough, according to one the country’s leading authorities on children’s services, child health and childhood.
The first Children’s Commissioner for England and champion of children and families, Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green Kt, came to the University of Huddersfield as part of the Second Annual Finding a Voice conference for final-year BA (Hons) Childhood Studies students from the School of Education and Professional Development.
The students on the course are preparing for careers in a variety of roles from social work to play therapy, early years, childhood researchers and policy-makers, parenting support etc... - as well as teaching.
The talk proved to be so popular that a bigger lecture theatre had to be found to accommodate the numbers wishing to attend.
Professor Aynsley-Green began telling of his own personal experiences of being from a single-parent family living on benefits. With his own father dying suddenly when he was 10 years old, he urged the audience to be aware of the importance of grief in children when embracing their own future careers.
“Politicians are failing on a grand scale,” said the professor and he expressed his concern that, as a society, if we don’t start caring about our children soon, there will be a lack of healthy, educated, creative and resilient working age adults per pensioner – which has been falling at an alarming rate. The decline will mean that there will be fewer people to generate the wealth of UK society.
“In the 1970s, the ratio of working age adults per pensioner was 3.6 to 1.0,” said Professor Aynsley-Green. “Amongst the projections for the next 20 years that ratio will fall to as low as 2 to 1,” he said.
The children’s advocate also criticised public attitudes and demonstrated how, as a nation, we are more tolerant of dogs than we are of our youngsters. He showed photos of two shop signs – ‘dogs welcome’ and ‘no children are allowed in the shop’. Hands rose swiftly in the audience when he asked if any of the students had ever seen signs like this.
One of Professor Aynsley-Green’s triumphs as the country’s first Children’s Commissioner was to lead a campaign to ban ultrasonic boxes, which were installed deliberately to stop children gathering in groups in social areas. He argued then and now that children learn through interaction and criticised the closure of youth and community centres, where they could go and socialise.
Professor Aynsley-Green was equally critical of SATS League Tables and how the “unmeetable” targets were creating de-motivated teachers and anxious children.
“A country which has a very different concept of education and is doing extremely well is Finland,” said the former Children’s Commissioner. Witnessing first-hand the change in the public attitude towards a child’s wellbeing, he explained to his enthralled audience how there are no inspections, no league tables and how emphasis is directed towards co-operation instead of competition.
Professor Aynsley-Green concluded his lecture imploring the students to become free-thinkers, to always have an open-mind and to continually have the courage to stand up for what they believe in.
