- GCSE /baccalaureate course in citizenship and family life

We live in a multi-racial multi-cultural society – to get the best out of this we need to respect the interests of the majorities whilst acknowledging individuals’ human rights.

      Everyone is different but the number of ways we get tripped up in life are so many that it would be easy to create the most entertaining and useful GCSE/Bac in the curriculum, based on stereotypical male and female characteristics,dating and mating, child rearing, interaction with other cultures, generation gaps and family values, international manners, elocution,ethics, personal presentation and preventative medicine.

A large amount of practical role-play would be involved in this continual assessment exam – with an aim to produce tolerant, peace-desiring people, who are confident in that they are able to make the best of their abilities and looks, and better prepared for the practical side of life, without necessarily feeling the need to resort to materialism, alcohol and drugs and other artificial supports.

So the essence of this will be to give to every man/woman the sort of ‘finishing school’ start in life previously only afforded by top fee-paying schools – and even then only inadequately done.

One focus of this course could be to shore up the value of family life. Strive as we might to make a success of life , when a marriage breaks up, (as happens to 1 in 2), it is often a bitter blow - not to mention the traumatic effect on the children and knock-on effect in society. One of the reasons that it is not getting the attention it deserves is that it is becoming a norm, but the ongoing effect is sometimes very damaging and far-reaching.

There is at present no preparation for marriage, but despite the prodigious failure rate it remains a dream which at it’s best is a great thing to aspire to. To help create a firmer foundation for it , it might be worth taking a deep breath as a couple and answering a pre-marriage questionnaire together, which might identify obvious future zones of compatibility and conflict. This might sound calculating and unromantic but it should be a bonding exercise - and if it’s not it might save a very unromantic encounter with divorce lawyers further down the line.