Jess MAMMJ

Reaching the end of a PGDip in Journalism, but yet to complete an MA, I’m starting to ask whether I can take any more education.

Having pretty much completed a life time of education I wonder how I have managed to cope with copious amounts of force fed knowledge, much of which I have already forgotten. Pythagoras? I used to know what that meant.

As a four year old I dreaded going to school but these days children are being forced into the system much earlier.

There are the 0-4 year olds who are dumped in a neighbourhood nursery after their parents have decided they must go back to work.

These kids have a lifetime of education to look forward to. Endless Maths lessons staring absently out the window, wishing they were on the football field instead. Yellis tests, SATS, GCSE’S, A Levels, and so on, and so on. There is a never -ending list of tests and examinations, and that’s without mentioning the mocks.

With the responsibility for children passed to nursery workers, do children have the chance to develop the necessary primary attachment. This is something which scientific research has proven is essential to normal development – to grow to be emotionally stable. Those without it, according to recent research, are more likely to be aggressive, emotionally unstable and could end up in prison.

While the government is understandably keen to keep parents in work, the already growing teen/knife culture will only get worse if children have no opportunity to discover what a loving relationship is. If they feel they have no parent or attachment figure to turn to the results can be disastrous.

Society needs future generations to grow into stable adults. However with the government’s proposition for compulsory education up to the age of 18 and ‘extended school’ hours from eight in the morning to six at night, is education, education, education just an excuse for cheap and ineffective childcare with unforeseen consequences?

With anti drink campaigns rarely out of the press and promotional adverts watched by the public on a daily basis, is it time someone challenged the idea that irresponsible drinking only affects those out to get hammered on a Saturday night?

Has anyone ever heard of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome? This is the life long mental and physical disability caused by the effect of alcohol on the unborn child in the womb.

Nobody knows how much or how little alcohol, or how often a pregnant woman needs to drink to cause this. Let’s face it, with our drink culture as it is, many women will be in a routine of drinking, sometimes heavily, even before they know they are pregnant.

But the sad truth is, most of us have never heard of it. We can’t have a serious widespread debate because the information is just not out in the public arena.

In Britain Foetal Alcohol Syndrome is so rarely talked about you begin to think its part of a governmental cover up.

Yet, American friends tell me, public health campaigns; educational health activities in school; and national publicity means they grew up knowing about the risks to unborn children of drinking.

Although council’s across Britain are worried about the destruction caused to town centres on a Saturday night, beyond this, there are much more serious and far reaching consequences to alcohol abuse.

According to the US website, Children, Youth, and Women’s Health Service, some babies afflicted with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome show evidence of harm at birth and may have identifiable features – squashed pixie like features - and others may develop these at any time later on in life. Other symptoms include serious life long disabilities that affect their development, ability to learn and relate to others.

The World Health Organisation has stated that FAE [Foetal Alcohol Effects] is the commonest cause of babies born with a disability.

Surely someone should be highlighting the real cost to new born babies, whose chance for a normal life is severely diminished after their mother’s drinking habits inflict such a disastrous and life-long disease.