Company bosses have long despaired about the lack of basic skills shown by many school-leavers turning up at the workplace.
Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco and Sir Stuart Rose, the chairman of Marks & Spencer, have both spoken about the difficulty of finding literate and numerate recruits. And a report on functional skills for the CBI indicated that more than half of employers thought young people applying for jobs were inarticulate, unable to perform simple calculations or understand written instructions.
The concerns have forced the Government to introduce a Functional Skills qualification from September which will put English, maths and information communications technology (ICT) into real-world contexts — and try to make sure that school-leavers can read, write and add up.
Sandra Stalker, the director of general qualifications and life skills at the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, a government quango, says: “We have always taught kids to read and write and add up ... What has been lacking has been the application of the knowledge in real life and work style environments.”
Results of a three-year pilot qualification have not been released by the agency but it is pressing ahead with the launch and says that “on the whole” those consulted were positive.
Samina Khan, the agency’s head of lifelong learning and skills, says the qualification is necessary because of an existing lack of confidence among students when it comes to putting their skills into practice. “They will learn to do adding up or write a piece of extended writing, but employers want them to be able to apply all those skills.”
The best employees are those who can approach a problem and use their basic knowledge to solve it, she says, while the ability to write a business letter, tot up an invoice or keep a record of a meeting is the minimum that employers expect.
“The Functional Skills qualification will enable them to demonstrate to employers that they have mastered those particular skills,” says Ms Stalker.
The new exam will pose such real-life problems as:
It takes 1.75 metres of denim to make a pair of jeans. Denim costs £3.50 per metre. (a) How much will the material for the jeans cost? (b) If the price of denim rises by 5 per cent, how much will the material then cost?’
The CBI wants the exam to be assessed not on a pass or failure basis, but to display a mark for employers to see how well candidates have done. There are fears that fewer young people will succeed under the new system compared to the number who went through the Key Skills qualification, which it replaces.
Teresa Frith, skills policy manager at the Association of Colleges, fears the bar may have been raised too high. “We are told that the functional skills levels tend to be about half a level up from their key skill equivalent and we believe a lot of learners will find this quite challenging.”
Functional skills have already been introduced as part of the new diploma — the qualification that aims to bridge the gap between vocational and academic learning. They proved to be the stumbling block for candidates in the initial stages and Ofsted said that there was “little firm evidence of their achievement in functional skills”, in their first report into the qualification.
Almost half the teenagers studying for the new diploma were not receiving satisfactory teaching in English, maths and ICT, the inspectors said.
Ms Stalker says that the failings were only teething problems. “We have only had one year working through the diploma. Kids won’t do well in a functional skills assessment unless they have been taught properly as an integral part of the system.
“At the early stages that wasn’t happening because teachers hadn’t had the training.”
But business and teachers’ leaders warn that there will be similar problems this September.
Susan Anderson, the CBI director for education and skills, says: “Many students have only been entered for the test, rather than specifically taught these [functional] skills. Teachers need the support and time needed to teach these new modules — assessment only isn’t good enough.”
Adrian Prandle, a policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said that members of the union were worried about the widescale introduction of the qualification.
“Our members feel unprepared. We [told] the QCDA that teachers and lecturers needed more support but I don’t think that has materialised.”
As well as being able to apply mathematics, English and ICT to real life, employers need staff with “soft” skills that are harder to teach and difficult to examine.
The CBI’s report on functional skills quoted employers as saying that they were “genuinely more interested in attitude” than scores in an exam.
They warned that many young people lacked a good manner with customers, the ability to turn up on time to work and were unable to take responsibility for themselves and their appearance.
Until there is a qualification in adulthood, they may have to carry on sounding the alarm.
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