I, like many others, hail from an area which bears the burden of the highest poverty levels in the UK. In our community, families struggle daily to provide healthy meals for their children and to escape the relentless cycle of unemployment and debt.

Unfortunately, our current education system seems detached from our reality. It leaves us ill-equipped to deal with life's practical challenges and seize opportunities to change our circumstances. For a mother on benefits who currently unemployed, algebra is less important than being able to budget properly, grow her own food help her kids have a healthy option and prevent obesity, or even sew clothes and use learned skills to better basic life. 

Our system is efficient at creating worker bees rather than self-reliant, innovative individuals capable of nourishing their lives both intellectually and materially. It is high time we revise our curriculum to incorporate practical life skills. We propose an education that lets students learn by doing on a regular basis throught school life - raising animals on the land, growing and cooking food from the land, budgeting for bills, and most importantly, understanding how to start their own businesses or find gainful employment. 

The government's own statistics show that a disheartening 9.38 million people aged between 16-64 are unemployed, and 1.58 million people rely on benefits to scrape by. Including practical life skills in our schools education, may offer a pathway towards reducing these distressing figures and empowering individuals and communities slowly and aimed at long term not short term results. 

We urge the government and education authorities to reflect on the current predicament and make necessary changes in our schooling system. It's not just about degrees and qualifications to get a job; it's about making sure the next generation is prepared for life, and once prepared for life the people can provide for their families better achieve better chances of obtaining a job or creating jobs for others buy being about to start their own businesses.

With the technology of our time and the children who are so impressionable they could use practical life skills to boost their young minds to create a better future including helping our environment and finding love for the land on which we live, helping to revitalise our environment. By learning to care for a living, breathing ecosystem, children and young people develop an understanding of the importance of nature in their lives and the lives of other beings.

Please sign this petition to advocate for the inclusion of practical life skills in the British education system.