"Compulsory volunteering"

It's kind of Orwellian, but also kind of true - Gordon Brown, writing in that august publication The News of the World on Sunday, unveiled plans to place an expectation on young people that they would do 50 hours of community service by the time they are 19.

My first instinct on this is to be completely against it. Don't young people have enough pressure with tests etc without being asked, sorry, told, to do free work for the community in their spare time as well? I suppose if the service takes place in school hours that would make it better, but with the curriculum as packed as it is, is there space for it without something else being lost?

Community service is great, but when you are forced to do it are you really learning everything that you should be learning. Also will it make young people less likely to volunteer in later life in the same way that people say doing English literature at school put them off reading books for life?

I know that as a young person I would have detested the idea. I did a community service element (lifesaving) as part of my Duke of Edinburgh Award but if doing DofE had been compulsory I can't say that I would have enjoyed it at all.

But am I missing the point? Is this really a great idea and will produce fine upstanding citizens?