work experience

I was briefly listening to a conversation on Radio 4 (don't laugh, I'm a closet intellectual) today about work experience, with a woman putting forward the opinion that we shouldn't make children do work experience without pay because it makes the work they do seem worthless and that we, as adults, wouldn't like to have to work for 2 weeks without pay so why should we make them do so. I find this a very odd view. I had an excellent experience as a 15 year old trying out what it was like to be a teacher, but I sure as hell wasn't any use to the school that week. Likewise, the young kids I get in as an employer are more hassle than value in terms of productivity (usually we spend half a day re-filing what they did - does no-one know the alphabet anymore?!),. It certainly involves lots of work for the person overseeing them. But nearly all those who take part say that the experience is really valuable (either to indicate they have a great desire to work as an engineer or that they sure as hell will do anything in the future to avoid it!). Most kids these days have saturday jobs where they can earn cash, the whole poinjt of "work experience" from school - at least in my humble view- should be to give them a chance to taste what other types of jobs there are out there. money shouldn't even come into it. Christ , they'll be expecting to be paid to go to school next.

But then again, I guess I'm just one of those HR Managers who likes cheap labour.