It has become commonplace for employers to demand that the education system does more to prepare young people for the world of work. What has also emerged is a parallel and growing demand among young people themselves for skills and training to equip them to hit the ground running in the workplace.
The troubling thing is that as things stand, according a recent CBI survey with Accenture and Hays, nearly half of young people aged 17-23 believe that their education hasn’t prepared them for work. If you work in education, are a prospective employer, or even a parent of one of those young people, you’ll be as keen as I am to understand why this is the case and what measures we can take to improve on these figures.
The frustrating thing is that we actually have a good understanding of what works in terms of giving students confidence to shine in employment. At Young Enterprise Scotland our programmes, particularly those elongated activities such as the Tenner Challenge, running over one month, and the company programme over a full curricular year, are designed to deliver critical value to young people.
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That’s why the recent credit rating of our company programme at SCQF level 6 (Higher or equivalent), which will enable young people to gain a recognised qualification through practical activity, is one of the best tools in our armoury to change future views of young people about education’s relevance to the workplace. In the first year we have seen growth in participation of over 30 per cent with 750-plus young people engaged in the qualification through our Moodle platform with Glasgow Kelvin College.
We will shortly share findings via a report from our collaboration with the Centre for Work Based Learning and the Robertson Trust, which will demonstrate the value of programmes like ours in developing the vital and relevant “meta” skills needed in the workplaces of the future.
We cannot afford to be complacent and, as we enter the final year before the next election in Scotland, we need to ensure that the support shown to initiatives such as Scotland’s Enterprising Schools (SES) by the Scottish government are continued.
I go back to the glaring statistic I shared at the top of this piece. If half of our young people leave education lacking confidence that they’ll cope in the workplace, then the real-world consequences - not just for their life chances, but also for the health of the economy - are pretty stark.
That’s why we need a long-term approach to skills development that ensure opportunities like those on offer at the moment, from us and others, become an entitlement for all.
Geoff Leask is chief executive of Young Enterprise Scotland
