http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35968423

YES

Our education system is set up to push young people into further and higher education and damn them if they'd like to do anything else. 

The people in charge of education live in an isolated bubble world where they themselves have obediently travelled through the education system right through university and have then landed a job in education to start the whole cycle again. What's missing is any real experience. It's then compounded by teachers getting so wrapped up in meeting targets and getting pupils through tests with such narrowly defined curriculum that the end result is not a well rounded individual coming out of school but a trained dolphin who can jump through a hoop and tell you some very specific facts about a book they studied for two years or some alien maths formula which has no application in the real world. 

Said pupil then goes off expecting employers to throw jobs at them because young people can see so many wealthy adults (teachers mainly) around them that it must be easy to get a job. The teachers haven't bothered to teach the qualities pupils really need as it isn't on the curriculum. The same teachers then turn around to now unemployed 17-year-old and say 'well you should have stayed on at college and then you'd get a job'. The same applies to 19 year olds who opted not to go to university. By the time they're 22 and an unemployed graduate its the economy's fault and nothing to do with the school, apparently. 

As a youth I knew I wanted to work in hospitality. At every turn in school teachers told me it was a waste of time and I was 'bright' so should be academic. I trusted them and carried on through college. I got a part time job as a waiter and loved it so much I was soon assistant manager for a well known chain and learning so much more than I was at college. Teachers said it was the the wrong thing to do, so I went to uni. Two years at uni and I hate it. Still a part-time restaurant manager I eventually snap and quit uni, go full time and within months I'm Deputy Restaurant Manager for the company's largest UK branch earning a respectable amount of money. Fast forward a few years and I now run my own place with my partner and doing very well utilising almost zero skills I gained from school. 

The same school bullied my brother and sisters in the same way and they both dropped out. Both of my sisters have very professional jobs, one in finance and one in nuclear electrical engineering (learned on-job not in school) and both own their own homes before age 30. My brother is 18 and is doing very well in the RAF an  couldn't be happier. I believe my parents are very proud, they always encouraged us to do what we wanted and not what we were told was right.  

If any of the forum's younger members feel like their school is pressuring them into following a path they don't feel comfortable in; please know that all you need is the determination and a clear mind to achieve what you want to do. 

Teaching is a wonderful vocation and very few of us are brave enough to take it on. Most teachers are wonderful people and inspire children every day. It's the people in charge of the education system who are guiding teachers and their pupils in the wrong way.