Our World Correspondents

Washington
Lee Siew Hua

No dole for dunces

SYDNEY -- Prime Minister John Howard faced an angry backlash by unemployed youth yesterday after announcing a plan to cut unemployment benefits to illiterate youngsters unless they learned to read and write.

In a speech, the Prime Minister announced that dole recipients aged 18 to 24 would have to take government-funded remedial courses if they fail basic literacy and numeracy tests.

From April, refusing to learn would mean no unemployment benefits.

Education unions, opposition politicians and young people across Australia condemned the scheme as a classic case of blaming the victim for the government's own failure to create jobs.

Welfare organisations warned the policy would increase crime and the number of young people living on the streets.

A leading youth worker and a national youth organisation said the policy would further alienate the young unemployed.

Said street worker Les Twentyman, who is with a Melbourne welfare group: "They'd rather take a chance on a life of crime than be dictated to by the bureaucracy in such a brutal manner."

Socialist youth group Resistance's national coordinator Sean Healy said: "This will cement an underclass amongst youth and definitely force more people onto the street."

Migrant bodies said the plan would discriminate against non-English-speaking immigrants unless it was coupled with more funding for language classes.

The Prime Minister appeared on several talk-back radio programmes to defend the scheme.

In the first programme, he told one caller: "I'm not blaming the victim.

"If you're saying schools shouldn't produce people who can't read and write, I think that's a fair criticism of the education system."

He said the numbers of people emerging from schools without the basic skills raised questions about the priorities of the education system.

But the government had to deal at a practical level with why people were out of work and would help them, provided they gave back something in return.

"Perhaps we went through a generation where, for whatever combination of reasons, we didn't focus enough on basics." he said. AFP

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