A-level results day 2020: Fight for our future!

Free education, real jobs and training for school leavers

Exam halls sat empty this year as A-level results are decided using predicted grades, photo David Hawgood/CC

Exam halls sat empty this year as A-level results are decided using predicted grades, photo David Hawgood/CC   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Kris O’Sullivan, Birmingham North Socialist Party

Picking up your A-level results is always a nerve-racking day. But 13 August is especially so, as it won’t be ‘business as usual’ for young people afterward, despite what the Tories are saying.

For young people, it’s not just a matter of waiting to see what results you’ve got. It’s also having to weigh up all the real-life effects of an ongoing global pandemic, years of austerity and privatisation, universities going through a funding crisis, and more.

With all this looming, young people see a grim future for their opportunities in education, jobs and housing.

The UK is the fifth-richest country in the world. But the capitalist system is crisis-riddled, and there has been a complete mishandling of lockdown by this government of big business.

That means the threat of mass unemployment and poverty for young people, for years to come, in a scarred economy. Look already at how workers in hospitality, retail, the gig economy and self-employment, have been abandoned and left out to dry.

Enough is enough!

Young people are sick and tired of going through the old joke of being told ‘if you get the grades this will mean jobs and homes to move out to’.

In reality, the current education system is young people being pushed through exam-factory schools and debt-machine universities. It means a lifetime of debt and no guarantee of a job at the end of the road!

This is if you can even get to university in the first place. Many student hopefuls are now told they might have to accept just their predicted grades for A-levels as colleges and sixth forms are stretched to the limits. This overwhelmingly jeopardises the futures of young people from working-class backgrounds.

If capitalism can’t provide us with full employment and living-wage jobs, affordable, high-quality housing, and free education for all – then we can’t afford capitalism.

So join Young Socialists and Socialist Students as we turn 13 August into a day of action, organising the fightback on the streets.

Against bogus apprenticeship schemes, and for guaranteed jobs at the end of all training. Against poverty pay and zero-hour contracts, and for living-wage jobs for all. Against tuition fees, for free education, scrapping the debts, and living grants, not loans. Against overpriced student halls and private landlord exploitation, and for rent caps and high-quality housing for all.

We say young workers and students must not pay a single penny for a crisis we didn’t cause.

The socialist fightback begins today!