The British education system fails to prepare young people for basic life skills such as banking, contracts, debt management, employment, etc. The primary focus of schools are to train students to pass their SAT's in order for the school to be well graded by OFSTED. The concept of GCSE's are a mess and would probably be better replaced with NVQ/QCF coursework based achievements that you work towards throughout your time in education. Take away the training for SAT's and kids could get through their GCSE's by age 14, get A Levels by 16 and be out of UNI by age 19. Instead we have overgrown children in their 20's who still don't know how to pay a bill or what good work ethic is.