Basic skills

One in three employers are having to provide their staff with remedial lessons in literacy and numeracy, according to a new survey.

The CBI study was commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills as part of their drive to raise basic skill levels.

A total of 140 companies were questioned in an effort to understand what skills employers require and what needs to be done to improve standards at work.

Many of the managers quizzed for the survey said that staff need to be able to use correct spelling and grammar and should be competent in simple mental arithmetic without the use of a calculator.

Stakeholder Response: NASUWT

Chris Keates, general secretary of NASUWT, said: "Discussions with the CBI about standards of education are an exercise in futility.

 

"The CBI is never content with any educational strategy or reform, even ones it welcomed wholeheartedly when they were first introduced.

 

"The CBI would have everyone believe that there was a golden era in the past when everyone left school highly literate and numerate. This is simply not the case.

 

"For pupils aged 11, 14 and 16, attainment in English and maths has never been higher. Due to the hard work and commitment of teachers, standards continue to rise. 

 

"That does not, of course, mean that there is room for complacency or that standards cannot be raised even further.

 

"Rather than constantly carping, the CBI would be more gainfully employed encouraging its members to increase their own investment in life-long learning to the levels achieved by employers in many other European countries."

 

 

Stakeholder Response: Electrical Contractors Association

 

 

A spokesman for the Electrical Contractors Association said: "The ECA broadly agrees with CBI's general conclusions. 

 

"It believes that poor educational attainment is one of the factors contributing towards the levelling off in apprenticeship intake south of the border - apprenticeship intake north of the border is rising. 

 

"Employers are showing an increasing unwillingness to take on young people preferring instead to engage adult trainees. 

 

"However, this is a complex issue and other factors are important too, most notably the heavy bias against vocational education and craft training in the UK."

 

 

Stakeholder Response: Association of Teachers and Lecturers

 

 

Martin Johnson, head of education policy at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "Our education system has been unable to meet the needs of non-academic youngsters for far too long. 

 

"Far too many young people leave school at 16 lacking the skills they need. 

 

"They are lost to learning and education for ever, having been bored by a 19th century curriculum and battered by over-testing. 

 

"This is a wicked waste of talent and potential expertise. 

 

"The system desperately needs to be changed so that real, rather than rote, learning can take place. 

 

"The current one-size-fits-all regime of endless tests – at 7, 11, 14, 16, and 18 - fails to do justice to the majority of school children.

 

"ATL believes there needs to be a radical overhaul of the current national curriculum so that teachers have the freedom to inspire youngsters so they want to learn, not just pass tests.  

 

"The curriculum should be designed locally, within a nationally agreed framework of required skills, and then it should be left to teachers to decide what is taught, provided the full range of skills are developed and assessed. 

 

"This should give teachers the space to prepare young people for a fast changing world – with not just the skills employers need - such as team working, problem solving, good communication – but also time to develop pupils as rounded individuals with physical, emotional, creative, social, and ethical understanding and strengths.

 

"And equally pressing is the need for a fundamental revision of the post 16 curriculum and an end to the divide between academic and vocational subjects – to stop Britain being the poor man in Europe."

 

 

Stakeholder Response: FSB

 

 

Colin Willman, education, training and business support chairman for the FSB, said: "The education system should provide these basic skills and an employer should rightly expect every employee to have them in their arsenal prior to starting the first day on the job."

 

"Basic skills are essential. A small business of five people cannot afford to send three of its staff on a day's basic numeracy training course. That would mean 60 per cent of the workforce absent."

 

 

Stakeholder Response: Association of Accounting Technicians

 

 

Jane Scott Paul, chief executive of the AAT, said: "We sympathise with report's findings and believe that they highlight yet again the real problem that compulsory education is not developing the numeracy and literacy skills required for employment. Something must be done.

 

"The increased opportunity to introduce vocational skills into the 14 to 16 schools curriculum may help by enabling people to experience the application of numeracy and literacy skills in context.

 

"We are currently piloting a scheme where our NVQ level two in accounting is being offered in schools alongside the standard GCSE options. 

 

"Take-up and feedback has been positive and shows that students are motivated when they see how they can apply their skills, for example costing and report writing, as opposed to just acquiring them in the abstract."