Research undertaken by Cambridge University as part of the Primary Review has found that failure to teach children the three Rs at a young age is damaging the British economy. The Telegraph reports that productivity lags as much as 25% behind economic competitors, such as Germany, France and the US because workers lack basic reading, writing and numeracy skills. Researchers say that thousands of children from poor homes are being let down by the state education system which exacerbates inequalities as government policies which give parents a choice of schools benefit affluent families who are better at playing the system.

(Telegraph, 18 January 2008)

Firms are forced to teach teenage workers the 3Rs

The Telegraph reported that companies are being forced to give teenagers remedial lessons in English and maths because they leave school with such a poor grasp of the three Rs.

The CBI surveyed more than 500 companies with 1.1million employees. They found that 52% of employers are dissatisfied with the basic literacy of school leavers and 50% with their basic numeracy, but 92% are satisfied with their IT skills. Half of employers said some teenagers were ‘unable to function in the workplace’ claiming they cannot make simple calculations in their heads, speak in an articulate manner or understand written instructions.

(Telegraph, 20 August 2007)

Ed Balls seeks business mentors for every pupil

The Financial Times (FT) reported that Ed Balls called for business leaders to help raise educational standards by providing classroom mentors for failing schools. Mr Balls used Morpeth secondary school in Tower Hamlets as an example of how business mentoring can transform struggling schools. In 1994, 11% of pupils at Morpeth achieved five A-C GCSEs, the most recent results show a rise to 76%. 120 pupils at the school take part in the scheme, a partnership with companies such as Merrill Lynch and Timberland. Every three weeks an employee from Merrill Lynch comes into the school and every three weeks one of the pupils goes to the City and talks to their mentor.

Mr Balls wanted to place a firm emphasis not just on academic needs but all aspects of a child’s welfare. He acknowledged that the central challenge in education today is the need to raise the standards of the bottom 20-30% of children. He told the FT: “What society needs to do is break out of a culture that continually focuses on handling crises, like truanting or arson. The focus, instead, has to be on dealing with the problem for a vulnerable child 10 years earlier.”

(Financial Times, 20 July 2007)

Employers put off by LSC

The TES reported that the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) has alienated many employers looking for advice on college-based training and left them with a negative impression of further education, according to a Ipos MORI poll of 900 people commissioned by the LSC. The LSC said they were unclear as to the reason for this.

(TES, 27 July 2007)

Employers sign up to skills pledge

The TES has reported that over 150 employers have signed a government pledge to support their staff in achieving level 2 qualifications and beyond, and between them to employ 1.7 million workers. The pledge is designed to help the UK compete in a globalised economy. Concerns have been expressed that many of those who have signed the pledge are part of government or the education system already, or employ very few people without level 2 qualifications.

(TES, 22 June 2007)

The TES has revealed that employers are failing to back the Government’s drive for a better skilled workforce and are instead demanding more unqualified people to fill low-grade jobs. The latest figures from the Department for Trade and Industry show the supply of people with qualifications at any level outstrips employer demand by almost five million. Ye there is a shortage of four million people to fill jobs that require no qualifications in all sectors from service industries to manufacturing. The survey, produced for Adult Learners’ Week, and published in the report Road to Nowhere?, shows a big drop in numbers of workers studying or training – with the sharpest, 15%, among part-timers.

(TES, 14 June 2007)

Brown urges employer's commitment to training

The TES reports on Gordon Brown's announcement that employers are being urged to sign, by 2010, a pledge to ensure all their staff obtain at least the equivalent of five good-grade GCSEs. He has urged businesses of all sizes to sign the pledge to train all staff to at least level 2 but emphasised that it was a voluntary agreement. Unionlearn has supported the move.

The Conservatives critised Mr Brown for already being too hard on business, but Mr Brown said: "Of the 3.4 million unskilled jobs today, by 2020 we will need only 600,000."

(TES, 16 February 2007)

Illiteracy rate is a national disgrace, says Sir Digby

Sir Digby Jones recently spoke in London to launch a two-year campaign to get more businesses to give staff time off to improve their numeracy, literacy and basic IT skills. Sir Digby said employers were facing the "last chance saloon". If they did not act now, the Government would force them to provide training from 2010.

The launch coincided with the release of two studies showing that Britain is performing poorly against international comparisons of innovation and research and development. In one study by international business school Insead, Britain was ranked 16th of the OECD countries, behind Tunisia, in terms of the strength of its skills base. A separate report by the Demos think tank argued that Britain would be sidelined within 10 years by the emergence of Asian science and technology, and called for the Government to set up a £100 million research and development fund.

Sir Digby said employers had to be put at the heart of the provision of adult education across the UK. This approach was recommended by the Leitch Review.

(Telegraph, 18 January 2007)

Schools will get injection of billions to produce skilled 21st century workforce

Gordon Brown pledged to make Britain's education system the "best in the world", with billions of pounds of extra funding for children's centres, schools, colleges and universities and more investment in vocational skills and science.

Another motivation for the reforms is the Chancellor's pledge to end child poverty by 2020. Boosting the educational performance of the most disadvantaged children at an early age will be vital to hitting this target. So the Chancellor has promised to provide extra support for six-year-olds struggling with reading by extending the Every Child a Reader scheme from 2,500 children a year to 30,000. The programme, which provides one-to-one reading tuition for children for half an hour every day over 12 to 20 weeks, helps children aged 5 years and 9 months to 6 years and 3 months, which is believed to be the crucial age range for establishing most children's reading skills.

Schools will also get a rise in direct payments from the Government, from £39,000 to £50,000 for a typical primary school and from £150,000 to £200,000 for a secondary. Children's rights campaigners are hoping that head teachers will use this money to give the most disadvantaged the opportunity to develop social and emotional skills through extended schools programmes, such as after-school arts and sports clubs.

In secondary schools, where the learning gap between boys and girls is greatest, Mr Brown has promised £130 million of extra support for mentoring, small-group tutoring and personalised learning to help to reduce the gender divide. The promise of a massive capital investment in schools, worth £36 billion by 2011, aims to refurbish or build 12,000 schools, half of all primaries and 90% of secondaries.

As part of a campaign to improve adult learning, the Chancellor has asked Sir Digby Jones, the former CBI Director-General, to be a bridge between employers and education providers, ensuring that training and education are tailored to employers' needs.

(The Times, 7 December 2006)

Skills upgrade needed to avoid mediocrity

The UK is "on track to achieve undistinguished mediocrity" if it fails to upgrade the skills of its workforce by 2020, Lord Leitch said.

When compared with those of international rivals, current efforts and targets were insufficient and the country was "running to stand still" the former chief executive of Zurich Financial Services warned. If the nation was to have a world class skills base by 2020 it would need to meet a number of "stretching objectives" calculated by the inquiry's team of economists.

By 2020, 95% of adults would need basic literacy skills, compared with 85% today. And while only 69% of people had GCSE-equivalent skills in 2005, 90% should have them by 2020, he said.

Lord Leitch called for a big increase in the number of people with higher-education qualifications - up from 29% in 2005 to 40% in 2020. Employers and students would be expected to bear most of the cost. Big economic benefits would be reaped if the country succeeded in meeting the ambitious targets, he said.

The report estimate the economy would receive a net benefit of at least £80bn over 30 years. Lord Leitch added: "The UK's greatest resource is our people. This is quite simply the best investment that we all can make."

(Financial Times, 6 December 2006)

Employers should drive the skills agenda to ensure the country can remain economically competitive in the decades to come, the Leitch review has recommended.

The Treasury-commissioned report said businesses should dictate how the national adult training budget should be spent and the design of courses funded by state money.

Lord Leitch, the former chief executive of Zurich Financial Services, said a new "demand-led" approach to skills provision was vital for ensuring the country could cope with the challenges of an ageing population and the economic rise of China and India.

The skills of workers would have to be sharpened at all levels, he warned, from those who were barely literate to those with degree-level skills. "Without increased skills, we would condemn ourselves to a lingering decline in competitiveness, diminishing economic growth and a bleaker future for all. The case for action is compelling and urgent."

Under plans, employers would gain control of £3bn of public money that funds adult vocational skills in England. The money would be channelled through Learner Accounts and a massive extension of the Train to Gain scheme, which has a budget of just £80m.

Train to Gain helps businesses find the best training for their needs by acting as a broker between employers and training providers.

If accepted by the government, the change will further diminish the role of the Learning and Skills Council, the £11bn quango responsible for planning and funding skills provisions.

State-funded further education colleges, which the report said were used by less than 10% of employers for their training needs, should have nothing to fear from the changes: "They have a real opportunity to deliver more economically valuable skills."

The Higher Education Funding Council, the main university funding body, would also lose a portion of its budget to allow employers rather than education bureaucrats to decide how best to spend public money on improving skills.

Lord Leitch also called for a strengthening of the powers of Sector Skills Councils (SSCs), employer-led bodies charged with ensuring particular industries have the trained workers they need.

Under the Leitch proposals, the power to approved new courses would be stripped from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and handed to the SSCs. Only those approved by SSCs, which could also give the green light to programmes developed by employers, would receive public funding.

The recommendation reflects Lord Leitch's view that the country must concentrate remorselessly on "economically valuable skills" that employers are prepared to pay a wage premium for. The SSCs will also be expected to play an important role in meeting another key objective of almost doubling the number of apprentices to 500,000 by 2020.

Lord Leitch disappointed some in the skills sector hoping for a cull of agencies and quangos. But he did call for a new employer-led Commission for Employment and Skills to be set up, which would replace the Sector Skills Development Agency and the National Employment Panel across the UK.

He also shied away from compelling employers to increase their training activities, instead launching a "pledge2 for employers voluntarily to agree to train all eligible employees up to Level 2, the equivalent of GCSE level.

If a review in 2010 concluded employers were no doing enough then Lord Leitch recommended the government should bring in a statutory entitlement for employers to get workplace training.

(Financial Times, 6 December 2006)

Fast food chain to feed need for basic skills

McDonald's employees are to receive official qualifications in basic numeracy and literacy by taking tests in the fast food chain's own restaurants, the company has announced. The chain is the country's largest employer of under 21s, many of whom do not have formal qualifications. The company said the GCSE-equivalent qualification had been designed to "plug the skills gap" of many of its under-qualified young workers and would be delivered through a website and studied in the restaurants.

The qualification is judged to be of the same level of difficulty, but not breadth, as GCSEs and, while e-learning is increasingly common in big companies, the McDonald's scheme is the first such work-based training qualification to be delivered entirely electronically.

The Learning and Skills Council, the government agency responsible for post-16 education and training, said making basic qualifications available at the "click of a mouse" was a significant step forward. McDonald's said it expected 1,000 staff would gain the nationally recognised qualifications in the next 12 months after sitting a test at a restaurant accredited as an exam centre.

David Fairhurst, McDonald's vice-president for people, said online delivery would help overcome the "stigma" linked to gaining basic skills. "It brings a new convenience to learning and removes the barriers of travelling to colleges and other adult education learning centres to sit exams." He said more businesses needed to help their staff with basic skills to "ensure that the dire predictions of a lost generation with basic skills deficiencies does not become a reality that holds business and Britain back".

(Financial Times, 19 September 2006)

You're tripping over each other, adult education bodies warned

The chair of the Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA) has defended her organisation against criticism from industry, which has claimed it is adding to the confusion surrounding the delivery of adult education. The EEF, an organisation representing manufacturers, has said that the Government is wasting millions funding a huge array of overlapping adult education agencies including the SSDA. It suggested in its submission to the Leitch Review of Britain's skills needs that the £68 million-a-year SSDA be merged with the Learning and Skills Council, which has £9.8 billion annual budget. The EEF said: "What we find is a bureaucracy. A plethora of organisations at different levels that are tripping over each other. There's a lot of waste."

(Telegraph, 12 September 2006)

Employers urged to invest more in training

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has said that employers should stop complaining about failing educational standards and start investing more in training themselves. A TUC report published today claims that a third of employers provide no training for staff, leaving almost 8.5 million workers short of skills and qualifications. It says employees without sufficient qualifications "should have a statutory right to request paid time off to train". Training should also be included "as a collective bargaining issue" under union recognition rights.

(Financial Times, 4 September 2006)

Schools system letting us down, says CBI

A report by the Confederation of British Industry claims that firms are having to recruit from abroad because of the poor literacy and numeracy skills of school leavers. While employers complain of having to spend money on remedial lessons, examiners say the year on year rise in A level and GCSE pass rates and the proportion gaining top grades reflect higher achievement and not a lowering of standards

(Telegraph, 14 August 2006)

The CBI has said that the 'dire' quality of school-leavers is putting science-based industries at risk. The business group spoke out to warn that teenagers have been put off science subjects because of a stripped-down science curriculum, a lack of specialist teachers and lacklustre careers advice. CBI members have warned that the science base is being eroded just as competition from India and China is hotting up. Employers are increasingly worried about the long-term decline in the numbers studying A level and university science subjects. The report said that poor standards are costing the economy £10 billion a year.

(Financial Times, 11 August 2006)

However.
Research has shown that employers are more interested in school leavers having good communication skills and a strong work ethic than literacy and numeracy skills. The importance of so-called 'soft skills' was highlighted just days after the government re-publicised plans to crack down on the '3Rs' in an effort to pre-empt the accusation of declining standards when 2006s GCSE results are released.

The latest survey of 1,400 employers by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and KPMG showed that while a quarter listed literacy as one of the main attributes they were looking for in school leavers, and more than a fifth listed numeracy, the attributes that came out top were communication skills, work ethic and personality.

The research challenged a survey of 136 companies, published by the CBI, which found widespread dissatisfaction among employers. When asked how the education system should be changed, employers also favoured steps to improve intangible skills such as encouraging young people to "take responsibility" and be disciplined, over improving basic skills and IT skills.

(Financial Times, 22 August 2006)

Things may not be quite as bad as they seem. The companies responding to this type of survey could include a disproportionate number which had a strong interest in raising literacy and numeracy skills. The implication is that a larger study might have found a lower percentage of firms organising remedial work. And while the survey revealed that a fifth of employers often found that non-graduate recruits of all ages had literacy or numeracy problems, 28% of firms said they had no complaints.

A quarter said new non-graduates did not struggle with literacy, compared to 22% who said that most or all recruits foundered. However, GCSE pass rates have been transformed over the past 20 years. In 1975, just 23% of pupils achieved the equivalent of five or more GCSE grade Cs. In the 1980s, the average level of performance was a CSE grade 4, the equivalent of an F grade at GCSE. Now, 56% achieve at least five grade Cs.

(TES, 25 August 2006)

The CBI report is entitled Working on the Three Rs and was sponsored by the Department for Education and Skills

More workers have the skills they need

Skills gaps are closing. The numbers of people deemed not up to the job that they are paid to do are in decline. That is the good news from a survey of the country's skills. The bad news is that skills shortages among those applying for jobs are not shifting.

Industry continues to suffer from a persistent lack of work-ready applicants to fill vacancies. One in 16 employees does not possess the skills or experience to do their work properly. That is a significant improvement on the one in nine floundering in their jobs in 2003, the worst rate this decade, according to the National Employer's Skills Survey 2005.

The skills most lacking among the 6% now doing jobs they are not properly equipped to do are technical and practical, followed closely by the ability to communicate in speech or writing. A quarter cannot use computers adequately. Employers organisations blame schools.

Another recent survey carried out amongst its members by the Confederation of British Industry, found that 42% were dissatisfied with the literacy and arithmetic skills of school-leavers, whether they were 16 or 18 years old.

The survey also found that 13% were seriously concerned about the same skills among graduates. Schools are still not getting enough 16-year-olds up to level 2 (five GCSEs at grades A-C), which is considered the minimum attainment for employability, according to the British Chamber of Commerce.

(Guardian, 27 June 2006)

Skills still in short supply, survey reports

The proportion of employers reporting that workers lack crucial skills has fallen by more than a quarter since 2004 years but finding the right recruit remains a tough as ever.

A survey of more than 74,000 employers in England shows the proportion of private and public sector organisations reporting skills gaps fell to 16% in 2005 against 20% in 2004 and 22% in 2003. The percentage of staff identified as lacking skills has also fallen from 11% in 2003 to 6% last year.

The study was commissioned by the Learning and Skills Council, a government-funded, employer-led agency charged with developing programmes with further education colleges and training providers to increase skills levels.

(Financial Times, 22 June 2006)

Workers say they learn better at work

More workers find learning on the job helps their performance rather than attending training courses, according to a survey, commissioned by NIACE, for this year's Learning at Work Day. The report, Skilling Me Softly, found that 77% of workers find doing the job to be the most effective means of improving performance. Nearly three-fifths (59%) of those surveyed find that hands-on learning, being shown by colleagues, watching and listening, to be just as useful. Yet, despite government emphasis on qualifications, only 57% of employees found attendance on training courses to be very or quite helpful. On in five (21%) reported that training courses had been of little or no help whatsoever. 27% of employees reported that the skills they had developed while studying for a qualification were also of little or no help.

Skilling Me Softly is available from www.niace.org.uk

(Adults Learning, June 2006)

Graduates unfit for work, say top firms

Britain's biggest companies have warned that, despite a record number of graduates entering the job market, many lack the basic skills needed for employment. Almost half of businesses said that they did not expect to receive "sufficient applications from graduates with the correct skills" in 2006. In 2005, 598 positions were left unfilled as a third of employers said that they could not find candidates of sufficient quality.

Managers cite a series of shortcomings in potential recruits, including:

• Too much time spent working on degrees and not enough joining clubs and societies, where students might work in teams
  
• Not enough experience of giving presentations in tutorials, leaving new graduates unable to communicate ideas in the work place
• Poor spelling, grammar and mathematical ability which mean that graduates are making basic mistakes, writing illiterate memos and are in need of constant supervision.

The recruitment crisis comes at a time of record growth in the graduate market. Starting salaries are expected to average £23,000 and the number of vacancies available is likely to rise for the third year running.

A survey by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) shows that many of the 260,000 graduates are being let down by the university system. Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the AGR, said: "Graduates must have the right aptitude, which partly comes down to the skills they can offer. If they concentrate purely on academic studies and have no work experience, they are not going to impress the employer."

Mr Gilleard admits that business is partly to blame, by shifting the balance in favour of more academic degrees. Companies are setting ever-higher entry requirements in an attempt to find the cleverest applicants.

(The Times, 7 February 2006)

Tax breaks best way to raise skill levels

Businesses are urging the Government to introduce a new tax break for training, arguing that it would be the most effective way to raise the skills of the workforce. Apprenticeships and Train to Gain, the new scheme offering subsidised education for low-skilled workers, are involving a fast-growing number of employers. But some business groups and training experts believe a more direct financial incentive will be needed to persuade the majority of employers to participate in the Government's drive to improve skills.

A survey of manufacturers by the EEF, the country's second largest employers' organisation, shows nearly three-quarters of companies want the Government to provide tax credits for the money that businesses spend on training. Companies believe a tax credit would make the biggest difference to improving the skills of the workforce, EEF found.

(Financial Times, 24 January 2006)

A flagship Government scheme to boost England's workplace skills training had little if any impact in the pilot areas, an evaluation says. A Government-commissioned study estimated that training increased by less than one percentage point. The Institue for Fiscal Studies said it was likely that those who did train under the National Employer Training Programme would have done so anyway.

More details are available from the BBC website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4581870.stm

(BBC, 4 January 2006)

Workforce skills leave room for improvement

A clear correlation exists between skills and productivity, which is why the Treasury has commissioned Lord Leitch, the former insurance executive, to lead "an independent review to examine the future skill needs of the UK economy".

The results of Leitch's deliberations will be available next year but speculation is already growing about his likely recommendations - not least from the sector skills councils (SSC), which have a central role in analysing the state of skills and forecasting where more investment is needed.

Twenty years ago the then National Economic Development Office issued the report A challenge to complacency: Changing attitudes to training (AC2C). It caused a stir because it highlighted how poorly the UK was doing in the area of skills training. Since then, evidence of improvement has emerged but not as much as hoped. As the Leitch team says on its website: "The context for (this) review was set out in the 2004 Pre-Budget Report. The document Skills in the global economy describes the social and economic problems caused by the stock of adults without basic skills such as literacy and numeracy; the need for a highly skilled workforce to confront the challenges posed by global markets; and evidence of the UK's relatively poor international position in intermediate level skills."

So how does the 1985 landscape compare with 2005? First, Coopers & Lybrand, authors of AC2C, would have welcomed the creation of sector skills councils, for they sowed the seeds of the idea. But are the councils equipped to do the job? AC2C observed that "to make such employer-led bodies effective they will need delegated powers to distribute grants".

(The Times, 29 November 2005)

Youngsters who fail to get five A* to C-grade passes in their GCSE results are written off by employers as having failed. Businesses are increasingly regarding anything less than a C-grade pass as a failure, it has emerged. The Department for Education and Skills acknowledged yesterday that what is termed level two - five top-grade passes - was "recognised as being the marker for employability and progression to higher levels of education". Professor Alan Smithers, of the Centre for Education and Employment at Buckingham University, said: "What they're saying is that that is a de facto pass. Everybody else is saying that, too."

(Independent, 25 August 2005)

Graduates not up to the job, say firms

University students may excel academically but do not always make the best employees, according to a survey of small businesses. Too many lacked basic numeracy and literacy skills and had poor oral and time-keeping skills.

"The basic educational and social skills of graduates are mediocre when it comes to being prepared for earning a living," said Len Collinson, chairman of the Forum of Private Business, which conducted the poll.
More than half of the 400 firms which responded thought that their graduate employees were "average to poor" at time-keeping or taking a telephone message. Nearly three-quarters described them as "very poor, poor or average" at addressing a letter.

More than half thought them "average" to "poor" in numeracy and literacy. Lack of courtesy towards colleagues or customers was a complaint against just over one in 10.

(Telegraph, 23 August 2005)

Young workers say they lack skills

Schools have failed to provide today's twenty-somethings with skills vital in the workplace such as team-working problem-solving and the ability to meet deadlines, according to a poll published by Ofsted. Two-thirds of the employees polled said schools, colleges and universities could have done more to prepare them for work. 45% said their education did not help them cope with their first job.

The findings will re-ignite the debate over whether schools are doing enough to prepare young people for work; but they appear to contradict complaints from the Confederation of British Industry that too many school leavers lack basic skills in English and maths. Four out of five respondents said schools and colleges had done more than employers to develop literacy and numeracy.

The poll found those who left education in their teens were more negative about it than those who stayed on into their twenties. Ofsted warned that many 16 and 17-year-olds start work with little confidence. The 544 employees aged 20 to 30 surveyed said employers were better than teachers and lecturers at developing key skills. Employers were rated best in developing 8 out 13 skills: developing teamwork; interview skills; problem solving; accuracy and attention to detail; meeting deadlines; ability to work alone; and verbal communication. By contrast, schools and colleges had a clear lead only in numeracy, written communication, presentational skills and information and communications technology. Schools also led on creativity but answering separate questions, twenty-somethings complained about their education failed to encourage them to take risks, challenge ideas or be creative. However, they did not think teachers and lecturers should shoulder the whole burden of preparing people for working life

One in nine people - rising to almost a fifth of those working in small companies - complained their employers were not helping to fill gaps in their skills. Robert Green, Ofsted director of corporate services, called for employers and schools to work together to ensure young people get the skills they need.

(TES, 17 June 2005)

• A new National Employer Training Programme, which will deliver free, flexible training for vocational qualifications to the equivalent of 5 good GCSEs. Government will also support adults who want to study for the same level of qualification at their local college with the full cost of tuition met by the Government.
• New pilots to support vocational training at technician, craft and associate professional level skills (equivalent to two A-levels), the higher-end technical qualifications that our economy needs. The Government will provide new money - £40m over two years - to support these pilots, funding will be matched by contributions from employers.
• Skills Academies to focus on the needs of each major sector of the economy and help raise the status and value of vocational education and training. They will form world-class centres of excellence, sector by sector.
  

Complaints from companies about the difficulty of finding staff with the right skills have soared, the British Chamber of Commerce has said. Figures contained in the BCC's quarterly economic survey show the proportion of companies having difficulty finding skilled employees has risen by 50% in the past decade. In 1994, 29% of companies complained they were being affected by a skills shortage, but by the end of 2004 this had risen to 43%.

At a conference in London, David Frost, BCC director, urged ministers to tackle these problems by improving vocational training and careers services for young people. An overhaul of careers provision through the Connexions advice network is expected in the March 2005 green paper on youth services.

(FT, 15 February 2005)

Businesses appeal to scrap the 50% university target

Business leaders in February 2005 urged Tony Blair to ditch Labour's target of getting 50% of young people into university, because they say it is damaging to the economy. Instead of doing A-levels, more teenagers should be following a work-based learning route that would often involve going to a college, according to the British Chamber of Commerce. The BCC said that more than a third of employers are unable to recruit people with the skills they need because too many youngsters are doing degrees that don't equip them for work. It appealed for the Government not to dilute the radical reforms proposed by the Tomlinson committee on 14-19 education.

"We fully support the main thrust of the Tomlinson report, which is full integration of academic and vocational qualifications, so that there is no difference between the two," said the BCC's president, Bill Midgley. But the 50% target had encouraged the notion in too many young people and their parents that vocational options were inferior, and ran counter to the Government's efforts to boost their status, he said.

(Guardian, 8 February 2005)

Fresh plans to close skills gap

The Government is to launch its second skills strategy paper in 18 months as businesses grow more frustrated at their inability to recruit young people able to meet even the most basic demands of the workplace. The new White Paper, expected in January 2005, follows a "New Year assault" call from Sir Digby Jones, head of the CBI, on the failings of the education system and the knock-on effect to the economy. He says millions of young people are excluded from work because they cannot read, write or add up properly. Business organisations believe, however, that too little time has been given for the policy initiatives outlined in the July 2003 White Paper, "Twenty-first century skills: reaching our potential" to take effect properly.

Stephen Alambritis of the Federation of Small Businesses argues: "The problem for businesses is that ever since the early 1990s, education and skills initiatives have been chopped and changed regularly. No government ever seems to give them enough time to see how they work. There have been a series of some useful policy reforms from the 2003 White Paper that help companies in practical ways, so let them bed down."

Jolyon Stonehouse, chairman of the Tenon Forum, an independent think-tank of small and medium-sized companies, says of the survey: "The biggest complaint by far is how ill-equipped people are for the workplace. Growth companies rely on the quality of their staff to set them apart from the larger corporations."

Since the 2003 skills White Paper, four Government departments - the Treasury, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department for Work and Pensions and the DfES - have worked together to tackle the "skills" issue. Yet in his pre-Budget report last month Gordon Brown acknowledged that Britain still has the highest proportion of unskilled people of any European Union country. The Chancellor said that the current 18 pilot employer training schemes, which encourage firms to give staff time off to retrain at little or no cost, would be rolled out nationally in 2006. To date, 16,000 companies and 110,000 employees have taken part in the project.

(Telegraph, 5 January 2004)

Ministers plan to close Britain's skills gap by expanding the highly regarded employer training pilot schemes across the country, offering a £10-a-week learning allowance for unskilled workers. The new employer training programme will give every employee the right to free training in order to make themselves more employable by earning vocational qualifications, although employers still have to agree to sign up to the project in the first place.

The Chancellor Gordon Brown acknowledged the country had the highest proportion of unskilled workers "of any major European Union country". More than 100,000 staff have enrolled on the pilots so far - many of them low-skilled workers who tend to miss out on training. Ministers hope the programme will increase the number of Britons in the workforce with "intermediate" level skills - the equivalent of NVQ2 qualifications. Britain has a high proportion of low-skilled workers compared with rivals. The scheme will be operating across the country by 2006-7. Under the programme, brokers funded by the Learning and Skills Council will help employers by assessing their training needs, designing training packages and sourcing training provision.

(FT, 3 December 2004)

Most adults believe that their schooling has left them ill-prepared for the problems of everyday life and work, a survey has found, with most blaming traditional textbook-based learning and inadequate careers advice. In a study of adults' experience of their secondary education, polling company YouGov found 76% agreeing that "our education system places too much emphasis on academic achievement and not enough emphasis on children and young adults gaining practical experience of learning-by-doing." More than half of the 4468 people surveyed said they would have preferred less traditional classroom learning and more time spent acquiring practical skills.

This dissatisfaction appears to carry on into working life for many, with 38% of those in work, saying their job fails to make the most of their abilities. According to Edge, a charity promoting practical learning, which commissioned the research, Britain is endangered by this wide-spread lack of preparation and subsequent lack of career fulfilment.

(FT, 6 December 2004)

Employers have to spend £1bn a year to bring school-leavers' numeracy and literacy up to acceptable levels, claims Mike Tomlinson. Mr Tomlinson, who in October 2004 recommended sweeping reforms of education for 14 to 19-year-olds, told the House of Commons select committee on education that "current GCSE grade As do not give an assurance of basic competence."

Mr Tomlinson said that the reforms proposed by his official inquiry, which included a diploma focusing on the core subjects of mathematics, English and information technology, represented an opportunity for employers. Mr Tomlinson echoed the CBI, the employers' body, in warning that there would soon be few jobs left for unskilled workers.

(FT, 25 November 2004)

Employers are concerned that a proposed shake-up of the secondary schools system will fail to address basic skill deficiencies in reading, writing and numeracy. Failure to address their anxieties could undermine attempts to reach a consensus over the most radical overhaul of the curriculum and exams for a generation. John Cridland, deputy director-general of the CBI employers' body, said: "Our goal is higher standards, not new structures." He is concerned proposals for a four-stage diploma to replace GCSEs and A-levels would not address what companies and some universities see as the current system's failure to guarantee a basic grasp of maths and English.

(FT, 18 October 2004)

More than 60% of employers have difficulty recruiting people with the right skills for the job, research reveals. And a quarter of the employers surveyed believe that the skills gap is making it difficult to drive their businesses forward by improving products or services. The survey of more than 13,000 employers was conducted for Skills for Business, which represents the sector skills councils. It has launched a major campaign highlighting the relationship between skills and productivity.

(TES, 15 October 2004)

Many school leavers "lack basic numeracy and literacy"

A third of businesses have to give school leavers basic training in literacy and numeracy skills, according to CBI research. The annual CBI-Pertemps employment trends survey of more than 500 companies found an increasing number of business heads were dissatisfied with the educational standards of school leavers. A total of 83% believe the Government should focus on ensuring all young people leave school literate and numerate. The number of companies dissatisfied with literacy and numeracy of school leavers rose to 37% from 34% in 2003's survey.

The survey also found that 41% of companies were not satisfied with school leavers' business awareness. Department for Education and Skills figures show that half of 16 to 19-year-olds lack the numeracy expected of an 11-year-old. Digby Jones, CBI director-general, pointed to the latest DfES figures, which showed that employers spent more than £23bn on training in 2000. He was concerned that a significant proportion of this was being spent ironing out basic problems, and claimed this bill was rising.

(Financial Times, 23 August 2004)

Workers and managers want good training on the job, not courses and qualifications, according to a survey by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE).

The survey of 5,000 adults raises doubts about the Government's aim to boost the level of qualifications, which is used as a proxy for Britain's economic success and to set qualification targets.

One in four employees said training courses were of little or no value in improving work performance. One in three said studying for qualifications had proved no help at work.

Employees said what they found most useful was help doing the job, being shown techniques by colleagues, engaging in self-reflection and active observation. Nine out of 10 said they had picked up most of their skills via on-the-job experience. More than half the adults in the survey, carried out in association with the University of Leicester, said "learning by doing" was the most effective way to improve performance at work.

Alan Tuckett, director of NIACE, said: Qualifications are important but they are not the whole story - too much focus on them could be counter-productive. We need a well-qualified workforce but getting people motivated and involved requires more and different triggers."

(TES, 14 May 2004)

Too many useless degrees in "soft skills", say firms

Higher education is producing too many graduates with useless degrees from poor-quality universities, employers have told a study commissioned by the Government into the relationships between business and universities.

Many employers felt that declining standards in courses had resulted in graduates "lacking deep technical understanding".

Core scientific skills, in particular, were being sacrificed for "soft" skills such as communication, team working and business awareness. There was a "proliferation of courses in media-based subjects, many of which would not be useful to a student choosing to embark on a career in the sector".

Some employers thought that standards of literacy and numeracy had fallen. However, large multi-nationals, able to attract the best graduates from good universities, were happy with their recruits, believing that many of today's graduates were "more determined and career focused than their predecessors".

(Telegraph, 16 July 2003)

School reforms will take too long to close productivity gap

School reforms designed to make youngsters fit for work are insufficient to close the productivity gap with the UK's leading competitors, John Healey, economic secretary, said in November 2002.

Poor skills within the current workforce would hold back the country's performance for decades, he said while introducing the details of a £2.5 billion a year workforce training drive. 80% of the workforce of 2010 have already left school, and two-thirds of that of 2020 have left full time education. "Tackling the current stock, as it were, becomes imperative." About 20% of the UK productivity gap is attributed to low achievement in schools.

Most of the £2.5billion will be used to try to stimulate demand for skills training, restructuring further education to meet business needs, and piloting new schemes such as giving employers compensation for giving staff time off to train.

He also called on companies - which spend up to £10 billion a year on training and see tackling skills shortages as a central business need - to consider increasing support for learning and to think again about who they spend money on. "At the moment, investment is often geared towards the skills of those who are already at a high level," he said. Businesses should consider whether investment elsewhere might not increase productivity further.

The report was published by the Cabinet Office's strategy unit. It can be downloaded from www.learningservices.org.uk/extras/brushing_up_skills.pdf
To view this document you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can download free of charge.

(Financial Times, 15 November, 2002)

Britain's business leaders are urging ministers to scrap their target of getting 50% of young people into higher education by the end of the decade.

A blueprint published by the Institute of Directors says the number going to university should be slashed to just 15%, with high-level vocational courses being offered to the rest at further education colleges.

"The country is short of skilled craftspeople and people with intermediate engineering and information and communication skills," says the paper. "It is not short of media studies graduates." It adds that the balance between academic qualifications and vocational training in the UK "is badly out of kilter".

A spokeswoman from the Department for Education and Skills said dropping the 50% target "would turn the clock back to an era when only a privileged elite enjoyed a university education."

(Independent, 22 July 2002)