Dudley Grapples with UK's Highest Youth NEET Rate
New figures reveal a stark reality in the Black Country, where almost one in five school-leavers in Dudley are not in education, employment, or training (NEET). This places the area at the centre of a growing national youth jobs crisis, with the highest rate of disengaged young people in the country.
A Teacher's Perspective on the Systemic Failure
Having taught in the region for 24 years, educator Kartar Uppal from Sutton Coldfield expressed little surprise at the statistics. Uppal identifies a fundamental mismatch between local needs and national policy, pointing out that the area has large working-class communities that highly value technical education. However, the national curriculum makes scant provision for this, leaving many young people without the practical skills that would attract employers to invest in the Black Country.
The proposed solution centres on early intervention. Investment in technical education from an early age would equip these young people with the skills that would attract employers to the area, Uppal argues. This call for a curriculum overhaul highlights a potential path forward to address the specific economic and educational challenges facing the region.
Broader Context: Letters on Policy and Public Life
The Guardian's letters page also featured clarifications on other matters. Godfrey Keller from the University of Oxford's Department of Economics detailed the complex Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) calculations for winter fuel payments. He explained that entitlement is assessed based on circumstances in a qualifying week but ultimately depends on income in the 2025-26 tax year, which HMRC will not fully know until April 2026 at the earliest.
Elsewhere, readers proposed creative solutions to controversial place names, such as renaming Epstein Road by prefixing it with "Jacob," and reflected on the nature of letter-writing itself, with one correspondent noting that their published letters have become shorter over the nearly 40 years since their first submission.
