Education,Tax and Culture

Published: Asian Voice

I refer to your editorial “Another young victim of gang culture” on Page 3, 30 August 2008. The death once again of a young person in Hackney, falling from the 7th floor of a block of flats, to escape from a hooded gang, makes us wonder what has gone wrong. 

Some recent statistics and social trends may provide some clues:

OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) carries out assessment of 15-year olds. The UK dropped from 4th to 14th place in science and mathematics in 2006 compared to 1998.

It may not all be bad schools and bad teachers. It could also be the excessive use of the Internet and video games. Parents need to switch off that television and video games and spend more time with their children.

Again it could be both parents working to make ends meet. Western economies should be restructured so that it should be possible for the idea of a male being the sole bread winner and the female being the housewife and the mother economically viable if that is what the young family wishes to chose to do. This is not something that should be discouraged by media or business or government as unthinkable or unworkable.

Almost 50% of young people never read any books. Reading on the Internet is not the same as real reading. And even on the Internet, only one out of 8 Americans read news on the Internet. Approximately, half of men from 18 to 34 spend nearly three hours a day playing video games. The same trend may come to the UK.

In a recent survey in America, two thirds of young people were unable to tell where Iraq was in a world map with all the countries of the world clearly marked. Nearly half of them think it is not necessary to know where a country in which important news is being made. 

According to Susan Jacoby, whose book called The Age of American Unreason is being published this month, there is a severe intellectual crisis in America and UK. 

Finally, the idea of independent taxation should be revisited and joint tax return for husband and wife should be re-introduced. In India the tax laws have the concept of a Hindu Family joint tax burden structure which could be copied in the UK that includes all family members. Individually, we have become too selfish.