Gap years: selfishly motivated time-fillers

''The money it costs to fund gap years should go straight to groups like Oxfam,'' argues Katie Dunn.

''The charitable gap year was originally designed as a filler between college and university.'' ''The notion of spending a gap year in a developing country reinforces a very old view of 'them' and 'us'.''

It is becoming ever more common for young people to take a volunteer 'gap year' at some point. They usually spend it in a developing country, working in a small team supported by one charity or another, and return home months later raving about what a difference they made, and how it has changed them as a person. But are gap years entirely beneficial to the world around us, and to the people they are allegedly supposed to be in aid of?

I would argue that no, they are not. The charitable gap year was originally designed as a filler between college and university - a means of keeping busy those students who could afford such a break. It is very difficult to find someone who has been on such a gap year who doesn't feel as if they have, in some small way, saved the world.

But, how much difference is it possible for one twenty-something, with very little (if any) training in conservation or development, to make in such a short period of time? In the grand scheme of things, in a world where 30,000 children die everyday of preventable diseases, no amount of enthusiastic gap year volunteers are truly going to make the difference they feel they have.

The money it costs to fund such a venture would be much better spent by being given directly into the hands of groups like Oxfam, or MSF, or any number of other non-government organisations. Not only this, but the notion of spending a gap year in a developing country of the 'third world' reinforces a very old view of 'them' and 'us' - it builds walls between the western world and those in need, instead of breaking them down.

Equally, in some cases, it would be fair to argue that gap year activities can be selfishly motivated - done by people in search of something to make their CV shine that little bit brighter than everyone else's.

However, this is not to say that gap years are worthless. They are not. They obviously have immediate benefit to those with whom the 'gappers' have contact, but in terms of the wider world, they are not as wonderful as it would at first seem.