I'm not surprised in The Western Mule reports that the Federation of Small Businesses in Wales has found that 82% of businesses it surveyed were worried about the basic skills of young people leaving school at 16.
According to the Mule...
One firm in Swansea said it routinely asked foreign interns to look over writing done by young recruits in Wales as the grammar of the second-language English speakers was usually superior.
The FSB released the findings of its survey of 140 companies in Wales to coincide with GCSE results day and at the same time the Welsh Government is carrying out a review of qualifications in Wales.
Across the UK, some 2,774 firms were questioned by the small business body and said they shared the concerns of Welsh businesses.
The FSB is calling for the Welsh Government to ensure pupils to leave school with basic skills, along with other important skills such as CV writing, time-keeping.
The problem is how do you tell a schoolchild who is already behind academically that they should improve their CV skills when they already believe they have no future.
How many of those who get good grades at GSCE now enter the job market rather than go on to further education?
The FSB seem to be making a point but how many 16 year olds are they employing..
Even graduates are now applying for the same type of jobs that 20 years ago they would have applied for at 16.
We have an Education system that complains about standards and then complains when it appears that the English GCSE is being marked more harshly.
Though it seems that examiners have jumped the gun over plans in England to do so and Welsh markers have followed.
Which is unfair on those who sat them.
But how can we have a system that demands greater success and then complain about standards falling because the Exams are to easy?
But the real problem lies in what to do with those who are not one of those who are interviewed live on the BBC opening their envelop safe in the knowledge that they have done well.
Its the ones who don't even turn up because they know they have only got a low grade in their subjects and already feel their on the scrapheap
When I started work there were numbers of people who were illiterate on the shop floor but still did their work well..
But there are fewer manual jobs now and those who went in local industry at sixteen with only a leaving certificate then would be unlikely to get a job now.
And those who later realise they need to restart their education as a mature student will not be getting the generous grant (although I didn't see it at the time ) I received at the age of 30 to renter full time education..
Instead of blaming the education system we need to look at how we are going to employ people who for various reason have not succeed at school to find employment when we have no manufacturing industry.
With graduates now getting jobs at call centres . What future do those with only three low grade GCSE have?
2 comments:
It has ever been so, a large proportion of the population has always been illiterate - just the need to be fully literate was not as important at one time as it is now.
At one time there were a host of jobs available to those with no literacy skills - those have gone.
We have to realise that for a part of the population they will never have the ability to reach grade c gcse and no amount of work can achieve that. We need to recognise that the population has a whole range of abilities. The challenge is to find out what everyone's aptitudes are and to try to best equip them for life so that they can achieve their potential.
Exactly Cibwr
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