I am seventeen years old. I've just begun the second and final year of my A levels, and all I hear day in day out, are the words, "personal statement", "degree" and most irratating of all "UCAS". At this point in time, if I could just find the individual responsible for the word "UCAS" I would most definitely fight them. Fisticuffs. 

The way I see it, I have just endured 14 years of education- beginning with finger paintings and egg and spoon races, with a slow progression to where I am now-  corsework, essays and ultimately two hour exams (of course via the albhabet, sex education and algebra). To get this far, the idea of another possible four years or more of attending lectures and meeting essay deadlines, kills me. This isn't even touching on the inevitability of walking away with £50,000 of debt. 

However, even as a 'nay-sayer' of University, I am still told by my teachers and peers, "Oh, you've still got to at least apply, otherwise if you change your mind you'll have nowhere to go!" at which point a small part of me dies inside. This is because despite my sheer dislike and contempt for the idea of University, I still have to spend hours of my time attending open days- none of which I believe will interest me considering the whole concept they are offering seems utterly depressing, despite the courses themselves- I must also write a personal statement: a document expressing my passion and desire for a place at said Uni, and through means of flattery, bragging and a bit of grovelling, I must then plead my case for how much I would LOVE to go to University. This process by the way, takes many months and usually several drafts are needed before the final product; I can't wait to get cracking on that bad boy...

Throughout my GCSEs and my A levels, myself and my peers have been drip fed ideas of Universities and degrees directly into our absorbant young brains, and I must admit, after that, it did take me a while to even imagine a post-school future for myself where a Uni wasn't present. However, even though I am heavily leaning towards not going to Uni, around 80% of my peers are all planning to head off to University next year. If this is roughly the case for all schools, and the majority of these students come out with a degree, just how credible is a degree going to be anyway? I mean, in the dark, dingy abyss that the economical future of my generation seems to be, there will of course be 'less jobs', 'less money' and 'more unemployment', so if EVERYBODY has a degree, what good will it do anyway? I'd much rather get out there (give or take) four years early with my youth on my side- lower sallery, easy to for the boss to manipulate, full of child-like enthusiasm- and get a head start on all these other competitors trying to take my job with a piece of paper and a silly hat with a square on the top. Another reason not to graduate: the hats look ridiculous.

‘Sorry I can’t come out tonight, I’ve got school at 8am tomorrow’ sounds like a rather strange response for a 20-year-old university student.

Yet this is my usual answer these days when turning down social gatherings, a reply which does in some ways feel like a regressive step in my journey towards ‘maturity’ (cough cough).

Whose bright idea was 8am classes in France anyway? The teachers themselves show significant reluctance in being there as they huff, tut and down large cups of black coffee in the dimly lit staff room, and more often than not I find myself with at least three students who decide that these early lessons are a good lie-in opportunity.

As a result, the back row is unofficially labelled as a form of ‘sleep zone’, where grunting, tracksuit-clad lads and girls with smudged mascara slump against the wall with hoods pulled over their faces or flop onto the desk with a textbook propped in front of them in an attempt to avoid detection.

I’ve got to admit; I usually leave them to it. After my first few weeks of desperate cajoling were met simply with blank faces and exaggerated yawns, I soon realised it was much easier to let them be than enforce their concentration.

Futile arguments with an attitude-fuelled 14-year-old at 8am on a Wednesday morning? I’d rather not, thanks.

It is moments like this that really highlight the differences between French and English schooling. When I first arrived here, my initial perception of the French education system was that rules would be 10 times stricter and more formal than my own experiences.

I think the previous example provides adequate proof of just how wrong I was. For a start, the teachers wear jeans. This may not seem a big thing in itself, but couple that with the lack of school uniform and seeming non-existence of any dress-code rules (apart from ‘no religious slogan t-shirts’ - the French schools all being completely secular), and a whole different atmosphere is immediately created.

Now, I work at two schools. One of them is in what I can only describe as a ‘Desperate Housewives’ area, whilst the other is in a district made up of blocks of flats and 2am mopeds.

The fashions of each are fascinating to me; shirts and high heels versus full-on Adidas with matching slanted caps and trainers for both the boys and the girls.

Yet in both schools, discipline is often questionable. Many teachers simply cannot control their classes, meaning every lesson becomes a game of ‘who can shout the loudest’. If the staff member in question is a mouse, they have absolutely no chance.

Luckily, I’ve derived a clever strategy for commanding silence, whereby I simply speak as quickly in English as I can, forcing even the most cocky ones to realise that actually, they are not quite as ‘trop forte’ (too good) at English as they think....works like a charm.

Even in what I’ve taken to referring to as the ‘posh school’, there are problems. The majority of students there definitely have an air of ‘Mummy and Daddy will do whatever I ask’ about them, so their issue is not so much talkativeness as a blatant refusal to listen if they happen to decide that they don’t want to.

However, this attitude (and indeed that of the other school) has yielded some incredibly amusing moments; moments which, had I been their usual class teacher, I probably would not have found half as funny.

For instance, one 14-year-old has taken rather a shine to me (no doubt just because I’m the youngest staff member and a female), and after countless attempts at discovering my phone number/address/if I had Skype, moved onto a different wooing tactic by proclaiming in the middle of his class; teacher present, that my eyes ‘sparkled like the sun’ and later, when asked about his hobbies, that he liked to ‘make the love’ (though he actually used a much ruder French equivalent).

If this had happened back in good ol’ Maidstone, I’m sure there would have been serious repercussions not to mention a significant amount of paperwork and letters to parents, but no, not in France. Instead, the teacher simply laughed, and went back to her marking. Crazy.

I have many, many more anecdotes and language faux-pas like this which I will proceed to share with you over the coming weeks, but for now, I think I’ll leave you with this. À la prochain!

It’s no surprise that the University of Kent wants to hike fees to the maximum permitted £9,000.

Most universities are going for the higher figure and the rest will not wish to signal that it’s a “cheapjack” uni.

Spending cuts will affect higher education and universities want to claw back as much as they can.

The Coalition Government was naive to believe that the outcome would be anything other than a near-universal clamour for the top whack.

Of course, the Office for Fair Access (a weird PC name if ever there was one) will have to decide whether universities bidding for nine grand have strengthened their case by pledging enough sweeteners to students and their hard-pressed families.

The main political concern seems to be avoiding putting off students from poorer backgrounds and attracting as many as possible from homes without a university tradition.  Actually, this group will get a lot of financial help.

It is the usual suspects in the middle who will worry most about this hike. They will qualify for next to nothing but are already feeling the pinch from all sides - lower tax threshold, higher National Insurance, lower benefits etc. They will have taught their children to put money aside for pensions, and to buy a starter home as soon as they can – all adding to the overall debt burden.

Discussions are going on all over the country about whether their offspring should place themselves in hock to the tune of £50,000 or more for university education.  They will weigh up the cost benefit analysis. Will their sons and daughters be able to use their degree to enhance their incomes sufficiently to merit the hard work and financial sacrifice necessary? OK, it will be fun, but will that come at a price?

When you have huge youth and graduate unemployment, when many employers have not increased pay for years, when the public sector is taking on fewer, if any, trainees, they will have to consider whether three years’ practical experience will be more useful than three years’ study and graduation well behind their working peers. You certainly don’t need a degree to be an entrepreneur.

These are difficult decisions for people looking at jobs for which a degree is not compulsory, such as law or education.

Schools are keen to push their students to university, but it might not always be the best route. All this uncertainty gives a golden opportunity to enlightened employers keen to take on young talent and nurture it. Come 2012, there will probably be a bigger pool of people with A Levels available to the labour market than before.

KPMG, Lloyds TSB Bank and others have launched schemes to tap talent early. I hope there will be more, so that bright young people are given a promising alternative to years of stressful debt.

I've got a feeling of deja vu listening to and reading about Michael Gove's blueprint for driving up classroom standards. There's lots of talk about tradition - natural Conservative territory - the desire to see more pupils wearing blazers and ties and an emphasis on improving the quality of teaching. (Although I couldn't spot the word "diversity" anywhere which was littered through most of the Labour government's various reforms)

Somewhere in amongst it, there are also references to houses and prefects. It all sounds vaguely redolent of Hogwarts so I was slightly surprised to hear no mention of Quidditch and wizadry skills being introduced to the curriculum.

Of course, one traditional feature of education provision is already undergoing radical reform - namely, the role of councils and what future they will play as Gove stirs up a cauldron of reforms.

The issue was touched on by county councillors at a cross-party committee scrutiny meeting at County Hall today and it was hard to avoid the conclusion that many are struggling to grasp the ramifications of changes which will radically diminish their input.

One of the consequences of drives by this government and its predecessor to give schools more autonomy has been to leave councils with less and less direct involvement in schools (although they continue to provide vital support services.)

This has been a deliberate. The Gove mantra is that schools know best how to educate, not distant overly-bureaucratic councils.

That is why we are seeing a new generation of academies and, in time, free schools - ironically, charged with the job of "innovating" new methods of teaching, although presumably only as long as students are dressed in formal suits.

But what happens when things go wrong at a school? Where are the local checks and balances? Where is the accountability? There was a time when education authorities had the job of intervening and acting to ensure that things improved. Interestingly, their statutory responsibilities in this area are steadily being eroded.

Kent's first academy, The Marlowe Academy in Ramsgate, has just been given a notice to improve by Ofsted. But as an academy, it is detached from KCC which will have absolutely no role in tackling the school's shortcomings. (Perversely, as part of Gove's vision to haul up under-performing schools, the Marlowe could in time be "taken over" by the government and forced to become, er, an academy...)

Conservative backbencher Cllr Kit Smith articulated the general frustration felt by many at this impotence with some pointed remarks at today's meeting. "We as KCC have some form of moral responsibility to make sure children get the best education they can. These are our children for the future and if they have a bad experience at school, that reflects on our county. While the government has taken away our statutory responsibility, we still have  a moral responsibility...it would be irresponsible of us as county council not to."

Who would quibble with such sentiments?

Sadly, in the brave new world of academies, free schools, ties and blazers, no-one appears to give much for moral responsibility, let alone local accountability.

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Kent Conservative MPs have been quick to condemn the astronomic rises in rail fares for hard-pressed commuters but they, too, are impotent and unable to do anything.

More commuter woe for Kent's rail users>>>

Why? Well, as several have been quick to point out, the fares regime is tied in to complex franchise agreements determined by the previous government and the changes permitted for regulated and non-regulated tickets.

Which means that for the time being, MPs can roundly condemn the increases - but when it comes to representing the interests of passengers or pressurising for some respite, can't actually do terribly much other than sound off about how dreadful it all is.

Lord Browne’s proposals for hiking university fees may please our academic institutions but is yet another blow to the budgets of millions of families on average or just above average earnings.

This generally law-abiding group that makes little demand on the state is being attacked from all sides. The rich will not notice much difference whether the fees are £3,000, or £7,000. The poorest will be given financial assistance.

But earners on or just above the 40 per cent tax threshold will lose child benefit and qualify for next to no help for doing their best for their family and the country.

Now their children face being saddled with massive lifetime debts for tuition fees, told by rich people to save huge sums for their pension, ordered to work until they drop at 70, as well as taking out a colossal mortgage to buy a home. It will be impossible for many who will abandon aspiration.

Hiking university fees will deter many potential undergraduates. Families already assailed on all fronts by a pincer movement of fewer benefits and higher costs will say enough is enough.

With the jobs market in such a parlous state, many graduates cannot find a job. Or if they can, their salary is likely to be pretty average, although no doubt just above the proposed £21,000 threshold when repayment - at standard interest rate mind you - will kick in. Not everyone will become an investment banker.

If a nation cannot help develop an educated workforce for its future, when India, China, Asia and a host of nations are already overtaking the UK, it is in a poor way.

Tory cuts and cost increases are going too far, creating a sense of pessimism among people who are willing to contribute so much. Labour went too far on a spending spree, the Coalition is going too far the other way.

Someone once said that they liked paying taxes because it bought them civilisation. Present policies are destroying this dictum. The UK is becoming an uncivilised place with a plummeting quality of life. It will be no surprise if the brightest vote to study abroad, while others, if they can afford it, will move abroad. Who could blame them in a society that is being increasingly cruel to Middle Britain.

Kent County Council is currently in hot water, with admission staff facing a potential nightmare. Parents in Thanet, after a month of the new school year, are still waiting to find out the school of their childs potential destination - which has led to a major backlash. According to government documents, "casual admissions are those that occur outside the normal admission round for the admission of children to school" and under reforms from the previous government, all casual admissions must go through the local authority.

With this in mind, Kent County Council have decided to blame the previous government. A fair point. This is a bureaucratic nightmare.

But, alas, the council did have enough time to prepare. The Meeting of Kent Schools Admissions Forum, Thursday, 17th December, 2009 2.00 pm (Item 4.) clearly highlights, that the council were aware problems might occur in this years admissions (2010/11). So, a fair question to ask, why wasn't a contingency plan constructed? Judging by other councils, action plans were implemented and local authorities cooperated with the schools - to ensure a smooth and less chaotic process. But not in Kent. If a strategy was formulated, I'm sorry, but I cannot see any evidence of it working. Unless I'm being too criticial, I cannot even understand a coherent strategy or route of action in this disastrous news. It is truly appalling. Blaming others is an excuse because, as I've found out, the council were aware from December 2009 that an event like this could occur. Eight months to prepare the system; agreed it is short, but it can be done.

I fear this will no doubt drag on into October and, hopefully, this will not damage the future of the children involved. Education is important, very significant to a child's development, and it is about time Kent County Council takes education very seriously.