THE statistics are painfully familiar. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are four times less likely to go to university than those from the wealthiest backgrounds. As for children with experience of the care system, almost 80 per cent leave school at the minimum age, compared with less than a third of all children in Scotland. It is a picture of institutionalised inequality, of potential unrealised, of life chances shortened and cut off.
One organisation that has been working to change that is MCR Pathways. Through a mentoring scheme operating in ten schools in Glasgow, they have been matching young people with older adults with the aim of encouraging and emboldening children to consider further education. The idea, supported by The Herald, is to steer children into a range of options – career, college or university – which may have been blocked to them because of their personal circumstances – in other words, to open new pathways for them.
And after ten years of operation, the results have been extremely encouraging. In the general population, 48.8 per cent of those with experience of the care system go from school to a job, college or university. But for those who have taken part in MCR Pathways, the results are radically different, with more than 80 per cent going on to further education or employment.
The success is down to the fact that the young people who take part are identified early on and matched with a mentor who can help with some of the practicalities of applying for a job or more education as well as offer emotional support. And the aim is always clear: to help people decide what they want to do with their lives and how to go about it.
For now, the scheme is operating only in Glasgow but this is a model that can and should be replicated across the country. Children with experience of the care system have the odds stacked against them in many ways: they are less likely to leave school with qualifications, more likely to be homeless, more likely to go to prison, more likely to suffer mental health problems and less likely to find work. Another issue is that they are too often regarded as “problem children” with the result that, at a time when they should be deciding what they want to do after school, they often feel set apart and written off. What MCR Pathways has proven is that it can beat those odds by ensuring young people have a mentor and role model they may not have in other areas of their lives.
The next stage is for MCR Pathways to recruit thousands more mentors, but the longer term aim should be to provide a model that can be repeated across Scotland with the support of more councils, colleges, universities and employers and to narrow the education gap that still exists in Scotland. Less than 10 per cent of adults living in the most deprived communities hold degree-level quali?cations compared to 40 per cent living in the most affluent areas.
MCR Pathways offers a route to changing those figures based on a compelling but straightforward vision: all young people in Scotland should have equal access to opportunity, support and encouragement whatever their background or circumstances.
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