Great job school principal, you... SPOILER

...you killed Swifty. Boy get excluded/expelled from school for 10 days, he tries to get back by sitting in school office, but it ain't enough for school, which let him wandering around instead, obviously leading to trespassing the law and getting killed, good job UK education system, job well done! If the boy would sit in school his chances of survival would be significantly better.

I find always amazing in UK/US movies the expelling punishment. Now how exactly is it punishing the child, that is expelled from school for certain period of time or permanently? Child with problems will see it as benefit (same as Arbor saw it and didn't give a F about it), punished are parents who may or may not be interested (but if they are both poor and working their options what to do with expelled child are very limited) and if it's happening often or if it's permanent expelling it's long term big damage for child and in the end for whole society/country to have low educated people living off welfare etc. So what's reasoning behind this extremely stupid punishment which seem to be popular in UK/US? I am not sure if they have it in other countries.

I am asking because I am coming from EU country where visiting to school is MANDATORY at least first 9-10 years (grades) so it's unimaginable someone would expel you from school, that would be actually against the law to forbid you from going to school and if it would be done by your parents they can be punished (removed welfare, etc.) for you not going to school. If you do something horrendous they can send you to special institution/school but you won't stay away from school, that would not be punishment but gift as any sane person understand. I can find this (my country) approach reasonable, because it's in best interest of society to have educated citizens, yes it's sort of stupid to force people to go to school (yes, there is very rare option of home schooling but it's strictly controlled) but what is another alternative? So even if it's not aligning much with my libertarian values I can accept this law.

But whole excluding/expelling punishment is really insane to me, it's like politicans who approved this option for school think that children actually like learning and going to school by nature, good luck with that. I could understand it for someone 15-20 years old who should already realize value of education and consequences of not having any (and probably should know already to stay away from trouble or deal with consequences), but punishing young children this way is just crazy because if they are out of school you really expect they know how to stay away from troubles and not get killed for instance?

Peter Markoff
The best - Fight Club, American Beauty & Falling Down.