Should the UK government pay for gap years?

Does the Raleigh graduate bursary award really hope to lower unemployment figures and get people into work quicker?

A response from Oliver Bray, a founding director of Xtreme Gap – a gap year company.

This week, According to the Time the UK government confirmed via the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills that up to 500 young graduates under the age of 24 will be paid to work in places such as Costa Rica, Borneo and Nicaragua, on projects which include building schools with the volunteering gap year organisation Raleigh through their Raleigh graduate bursary award. While the candidates will have to pay the first £1000 cost towards the trip and arrange their own flights and vaccines, the UK government will also contribute £1000 assist with various projects who have set aside just under half a million pounds though the scheme.
When you consider there are currently 48 graduates going for every job vacancy in the UK (according to a study by the Association of Graduate Recruiters), this is most likely politically motivated: reducing unemployment figures, enabling the participants to improve their job prospects. According to Raleigh “The bursary will give recent graduates the opportunity to enhance their employability in the current job market by developing the key soft skills that their CV might currently lack”. It will also be helping the less advantaged realise their dream of taking a gap year.
As player in the gap year industry, most would expect that we would support this initiative - as it is almost too good to be true for any industry if the government agrees to subsidise the cost of your products to help consumers buy them. So you may be surprised to hear that we actually feel this is a very questionable use of tax payers money, as the award, we feel, is based on several assumptions that are incorrect:
These are: Volunteering directly improves your job prospects, only the privileged can take a gap year and therefore people need assistance with funding.
We would like to point out that Raleigh also contributes £1000 toward the award, and they are a registered charity so we are in no way insinuating that this is a money making venture on their part, and that the projects they run in our opinion are ethically sound and have a genuinely positive impact on foreign communities, but should they be paid for by the UK tax payer? We think no.

We would question whether involvement in a “volunteering” program would enhance someone’s employability. Surely it would be better to actually develop skills needed for a job – as “soft skills” have a very spurious impact on suitability for a job. No doubt a noble cause, but lets be clear, it is at your (the UK tax payers) expense, and considering they have to contribute £1000 anyway, they must have a means to fund raise. Why should they not pay for their whole trip. When the successful Raleigh graduate bursary award applicants return after their short 10 week program, they will still face tough competition in the jobs market, having cost the UK tax payer £100 a week or £500,000 in total, and still be eligible to claim benefits. Surely it would be better for the gappers to actually exit the country for longer and have a means to earn on their gap year abroad?

The particularly savvy gappers concerned about the financial impact of a gap year will enrol in a gap year program that trains their skills actually associated with getting job: allowing them to work on their gap year. This is also easier to do than you might expect, our Australia beach lifeguard program for example costs under £2000 and enables people to gain jobs all over the world a lifeguards earning up to £500 per week. In Australia, this is a qualification that is virtually “recession proof” and held in high regard as it is also ethically noble as it actually involves saving peoples lives.

This allows gappers to stay away for longer and earn money abroad. When their year is up, they return to the UK, bring back money into the UK economy. They would actually be making a contribution to the tax system without costing the UK tax payer a penny.

Another example might be to train as a DIVEMASTER in Thailand, which you can do through Xtreme Gap for less than £2000, again, you will prolong your time away and gaining a professional level qualification allowing you to earn and become more employable. You support yourself on your gap year without the need for a government hand out and without being a tax burden.
Then there is the eligibility aspect of the Raleigh Graduate bursary award. The majority of gappers will work in jobs, living at home with their parents and save to be able to go away. Many will earn enough to cover their flights (as they do in the case of the Raleigh graduate bursary award) and then work abroad – further funding their travels.
We would question the thinking that people taking a gap year are part of an exclusive club, only taken by the rich upper middle classes and paid for by their parents, whether it be a gap year with Raleigh or anyone else. Our experience tells us this is not the case, with the proper planning and will, a gap year can be taken by anyone. Sure the initial out lay can be considerable, but it is not unachievable.
Finally, the average Raleigh program costs £3000 excluding flights (Raleigh’s website, 27% of this fee is swallowed up in UK overheads) Raleigh most likely is not making any money with the graduate bursary award, but should the UK government be making a direct contribution to these programs when this is considerably more expensive than the cost of one of our programs that do have a direct impact on the gappers employment prospects, when the Raleigh graduate bursary award will not actually provide a direct benefit to your employment prospects?
As a parting bit of advice, to those believing they cannot afford a gap year shop around and come talk to us, as a best value gap year company, we enable people to take a gap year without being a burden on the tax payer.
Ends.
Oliver Bray Xtreme Gap