Last year, the British Army had its lowest number of trained personnel on record – just 70,000 – since the Napoleonic Wars so is it any surprise that some form of military service in the UK may be mooted? The Swedes and Finns have conscription, which is compulsory army training, as do the Israelis. It might be time to rethink the available options to suit British young people.
Student debt is soaring, leaving the typical graduate weighed down with an average of £50k (plus interest) to repay by the end of university. I can’t help thinking, as a mother whose eldest child has recently started a three-year BA (Hons) in Politics, at nearly £10,000 per year on tuition fees alone, is there not a better way of doing this?
I’m not in favour of forced conscription but instead a form of national service at universities. Instead of asking students to sign up to sports societies at £100 a pop – and that’s before you have bought all the equipment to go with it – wouldn’t it be better to do this? Rishi Sunak wanted to bring in a year-long military-style service: though no young person would be forced to fight, the idea was to compel people by law to complete a community programme over a year or enrol in military training at 18.
There would have been a range of opportunities other than military training per se, such as cybersecurity or search and rescue. The Government could offer some sort of financial reward to students who, let’s face it, need the money and often have time to train – not to mention being in their prime physically.
There may be some SAS types lurking in the student bars whose weight-lifting talents are wasted on the student gym. They could put their fitness to good use and earn some pocket money in the process. And if not everyone fancies themselves as a James Bond-like stunt man, it won’t matter as there are plenty of other jobs to do aside from hairy manoeuvres done by paratroopers and tank crewmen. Service personnel are required in support and non-combat roles such as chefs, logistics officers, IT technicians and construction workers.
As my son has gone off to university, I’ve been astonished to learn that the summer term often finishes as early as March, so their £10,000 of tuition fees – not to mention accommodation and living costs – effectively covers September to March. If this summer term is essentially just a party, wouldn’t now be the perfect time for some combatant training as well as the prospect of earning a few pennies and offsetting student debt?
Instead of mooching around, watching Netflix and ordering pizza they can’t afford, why not have them running up and down the side of a Welsh mountain or swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. If it’s the right weather for it, they could show off their tans to their mates in the nightclub and, because they would have been financially incentivised for their efforts, they might even be able to afford a pint of beer to celebrate.
It’s not as if graduates are finding it easy to get work either: some recent figures show as much as a 30 per cent decline in vacancies in the last year, as AI tools take over. Competition is at a high with the average employer receiving 140 applications per graduate job. The Institute of Student Employers reports that two decades ago companies were receiving an average of 38 applications per graduate vacancy.
If they were doing some army training they would at least have work to fill their time and a pay cheque – instead of spending hours catching the wrong trains to job interviews, only to be told the post had been filled the day before but, sorry, no one had “relayed this to them in time”. (That actually happened to my son — who then got fined for boarding the wrong train.)
If they were paid by the army, they would have gainful employment that would benefit them and the country. Instead of dumping our 18-year-olds in the parking lot that university has become, let’s get them out of their (expensive) bedsits and get them moving.
All those hours spent playing Call of Duty might even pay off – let’s face it, a teen is the first person I call when I have an IT issue. Some of them might be happy to help.
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