Published on September 21st, 2011 | by Joe Hinds
Image © [caption id="attachment_3709" align="alignleft" width="175" caption="Youth Clubs Offered A Much Better Source Of Guidance For The Youth Before Government Cuts © Geoff Dexter"][/caption] Nick Clegg's keynote speech to the Liberal Democrats later today will announce a £50m proposal for a voluntary summer school for children making the transition from Primary to Secondary School. The new scheme, set to start next summer, will offer 'catch-up classes' for up to 100,000 children who are believed to currently be in danger of "falling through the cracks". While this scheme has clearly been designed to show Clegg's 'liberal' understanding of inner city kids' troubles and the challenges they're facing (whilst at the same time highlighting his view of rehabilitation rather than a Conservative punishment-based resolution) the reality of such a scheme does little more than to highlight just how ostracised our elitist leaders are to the reality of lower-class society if they honestly believes that a voluntary two-week summer school for the disadvantaged who have no prospects and "nothing to lose"  will solve the underlying problems that decades of  vast inequality have plagued on our society. The sad truth remains that perhaps the £50m that has been allocated for this project would be put to much better use by re-opening the countless youth clubs that have been closed and re-employing the youth and community leaders that lost their jobs due to the many cuts issued by Clegg himself and this Coalition Government. Youth groups such as Connexions and Sure Start, before being decapitated by the cuts, actually offered the youth recreation, advice and guidance throughout the formative years of their lives and offered a lasting long term solution rather than merely the chance for two weeks of extra catch-up school in the summer. At this rate the vast majority of the population would rather see the money spent on sending our out-of-touch MPs to live within the hardships of an inner city council estate for  two weeks in the summer before creating such ludicrous policy schemes...