No wonder illiterate youth turns to crime

Jermaine Pennant is the visible face of a blight affecting children from similar backgrounds all over Britain

It would be easy to dismiss 22-year-old Jermaine Pennant as yet another overpaid young footballer who offers no kind of role model whatsoever for young men. Sentenced to three months in prison this week for driving while almost two and a half times over the limit, it is his second offence within a year. Mr Pennant earns £10,000 a week, and drove (until he wrapped it around a lamp post whilst drunk at 6am) a £70,000 Mercedes. He is attractive, well dressed, highly skilled. In court, his lawyer claimed in mitigation that Pennant drank on the day in question because he was "extremely depressed" after being told he had not been selected to play for Arsenal, but more revealingly, it was stated that his aunt had misread a letter from the DVLA telling him the date his previous disqualification (also for drink-driving) ended.

It would be easy to dismiss 22-year-old Jermaine Pennant as yet another overpaid young footballer who offers no kind of role model whatsoever for young men. Sentenced to three months in prison this week for driving while almost two and a half times over the limit, it is his second offence within a year. Mr Pennant earns £10,000 a week, and drove (until he wrapped it around a lamp post whilst drunk at 6am) a £70,000 Mercedes. He is attractive, well dressed, highly skilled. In court, his lawyer claimed in mitigation that Pennant drank on the day in question because he was "extremely depressed" after being told he had not been selected to play for Arsenal, but more revealingly, it was stated that his aunt had misread a letter from the DVLA telling him the date his previous disqualification (also for drink-driving) ended.

Jermaine Pennant probably didn't want the world to know that, although he might possess magical techniques on a football pitch, he has trouble reading and writing. In fact, he has come from a background which sounds depressingly familiar. Pennant's parents separated when he was three, and he lived with his father, helping to raise his three younger brothers and sisters. At first, he resided in a hostel for the homeless in Nottingham and then the family moved to a tough council estate where crime and drug dealing were the norm. His mother (who he was very close to) died from cancer, and after his stepmother was exposed as a prostitute by The People newspaper, in 2003, his father subsequently parted from her.

Not a great set of circumstances, but Jermaine was never in trouble with the police and his brilliance at football meant he made his debut for Notts County when he was just 15 years old, with all the financial rewards that brings. He was then signed to Arsenal the following year for a record sum for a teenager of £2m. Yet Jermaine had left school barely educated, and it fell to his football club to assume responsibility for remedying the situation.

But Mr Pennant is just the visible face of a blight that is seriously affecting children from similar backgrounds all over Britain. Yesterday, a report from the Centre for Policy Studies claimed that more than 1.2 million children have been failed by the Government's literacy strategy, and suggested that a scheme should be set up to test synthetic phonics (a different way of teaching reading) that has had good results in Scotland. Dismissively, the Department for Education countered with a statement claiming that more than 3.2 million children now achieve or exceed the expected level of literacy for their age.

Nevertheless, a highly critical report from Ofsted, published last month, stated that almost half of all boys and a third of girls leave primary school unable to write properly. And although Ruth Kelly and her team can claim standards of literacy are rising, the fact remains that only 83 per cent of children meet the expected standard in reading, and for writing the level is a pitiful 63 per cent, which drops further to a shocking 56 per cent for boys. In 2003, although 78 per cent of eleven year olds reached the expected standard in English tests, this only represents a 3 per cent rise from 2003 and the first rise since 2000. What about the 22 per cent of children who still leave primary school unable to read and write - that's nearly one in five youngsters in the same boat as Jermaine?

It seems to me that locking up Jermaine Pennant achieves nothing whatsoever and further demonstrates how many people in authority, from government ministers to the police to the judiciary, seek to deal with what they term "yob culture" in a completely ham-fisted, reactionary manner.

Jermaine would be better employed spending the next three months attending a local primary school as an unpaid classroom assistant, helping with physical education and attending daily literacy classes. That way, at least he would be costing the taxpayer nothing, and contributing something back to the community, as well as acquiring the basic skills for life his mentors at Arsenal have singularly failed to instil in him.

This week, Adidas unveiled an "intelligent" running shoe, costing £175 a pair - apparently this must-have footwear contains a "brain" which reads the terrain you run on and adjusts the cushioning accordingly. Mr Pennant was arrested behind the wheel of his luxury car fiddling with its costly satellite navigation system as he endeavoured to drive from north London to Bristol - why learn to read a map when a robot can do it for you? In Mr Pennant's world, it is easy to see how gorgeous gadgetry and intelligent shoes have replaced the need to read letters, menus, bills and newspapers. When you earn £10,000 a week, there's always a hanger-on or a minion to do that kind of thing for you.

And, having taught eight and nine year olds (albeit for a couple of weeks), I can see that without reading and writing skills young men will grow up lacking in self-esteem and with all sorts of behavioural problems. They will hide their embarrassing shortcomings with macho posturing, bullying, petty crime and gang membership. They are generally unemployable, adrift in society before they even have the right to vote, and they are growing in number. Pennant's footballing skills have allowed him the luxury of not dealing with humdrum matters, like time-keeping and abiding by the rules, that other less gifted youngsters would not have.

Instead of demonising Pennant, we should be examining carefully how we let people like him down time and time again. This summer, thousands of young people will start secondary education at a disadvantage because they can't even read the label on a tin of beans. And now Charles Clarke has proudly announced that ten year olds who are given Asbos (anti-social-behaviour-orders) can be named.

Mr Clarke has said that tackling youth crime is a priority for the Government, and that by allowing newspapers and the media to identify young offenders, people who broke the rules of their Asbos could end up in prison. There is no evidence whatsoever that this will work, not to mention that last October the High Court ruled that it was a breach of human rights to name three teenagers who terrorised part of north London in leaflets distributed to the local community. In fact, many people who work with young offenders believe that issuing an Asbo and then publicly identifying the youngster actually turns them into a little hero within their peer group. And the latest figures for the number of people breaching Asbos has risen to 42 per cent in the three months to December 2003 - hardly a fabulous success rate for a great New Labour initiative.

According to David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, Asbos are useless and should be replaced by better policing. I don't agree. Youth crime stems from a lack of education and opportunities, it's as simple as that. Until every child in the country leaves primary school reading effortlessly and writing perfectly, then no amount of tagging, Asbos and stupid reactionary gestures by politicians is going to stem the growing number of young men who behave badly, break the law, take drugs and drink to excess.

I can't feel anything but pity for Jermaine Pennant and a deep sense of unease about Mr Clarke and Miss Kelly's ability to engage with the voters of tomorrow. Knee-jerk policies and mouthing statistics doesn't disguise the fact that they are not prepared to invest adequately in solving a crisis in education.