This month has seen yet another reprise of rising results in GCSEs and A-levels.
Well, congratulations to those who have worked hard and achieved – you deserve your praise. The debate will rage over whether standards have fallen, but exam success remains an important stepping-stone in life’s progress for many.
I always look for academic achievement when hiring new staff, but the story of record grades has been repeated so often that I’ve mentally moved on from using the results of our education system as a reliable indicator of an applicant’s suitability. A or A*? I really can’t discern a meaningful difference.
Commenting on the latest A-level results, our general director at the Institute of Directors (IoD), Miles Templeman, said: “Groundhog Day debates about A-levels and GCSEs always generate more heat than light. From the employer’s perspective, they obscure the real priority issues in education: improving standards of literacy and numeracy and the employability skills of our young people.
The relentless push to improve exam results and increase enrollment in university is making us forget the basics
I wholeheartedly agree with Miles. The relentless push to improve exam results and increase enrollment in university is making us forget the basics. Too often I come across hopeful job seekers who are let down by poor fundamental skills. In my line of business – public relations – weaknesses in spoken and written communication are most often the barrier to employment.
Even more important to me, however, is a general sense of employability. Far too many young people have little or no understanding of the world of work. They don’t know what employers expect of them, nor do they appreciate how to add value during a time in their development when hiring them can mean more cost than benefit.
This is not their fault. Most of us are pretty green when we enter the workplace. It would also be unfair to lay the blame solely at the door of schools, colleges and universities, but my personal experience is that few such institutions do a genuinely good job of helping their students to really grasp what lies ahead. Parents have just as an important role to play, but it’s more practicable for us to fix failures in our education system.
I would like to see such important life skills become part of the curriculum in schools, while colleges and universities should bridge the gap between education and its application. Those of us in business can and should play our part in this; there’s no point grumbling from the sidelines if we want to see improvements.
Each year my branch of the IoD (central London) invites students from further education colleges to take part in business challenges as part of a week of activities supporting Enterprise UK. They tell us what an inspiring experience it is to come to the IoD’s headquarters and engage with directors of real businesses. If we want young people to understand the business world, we have to invite them in (or go to them) and demonstrate it in action.
