Young People Today Unemployable?

It will come as a surprise to many that UK business people consider most of our youth unemployable.

According to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), 76% of executives agreed that young people lack the skills necessary for today’s business world, and not surprisingly, they blame the education system in the UK. They claim the country is heading for a significant skills crisis that will eventually damage the economy.

Their main concerns are young people’s lack of discipline and poor timekeeping (61%), a shortage of workplace skills (63%), and a bad attitude coupled with lack of ambition (66%). Naturally, this does not apply to all young people.

Sign of the Times?

I for one do not subscribe to blaming only the education system for the current crisis, as I consider modern social attitudes a major contributor. We are deeply entrenched in a period in history when our youth often requires, and is given, everything handed to them on a plate, and more importantly, many consider it their right! Sad as it may be, that is the general consensus of opinion among much of our misbegotten youth of today. Ever heard the phrase “I want it, and I want it  now!!!”

Children today have become so privileged they don’t need to do a darned thing to earn the things they want: “I had to buy my son a computer because all his friends have one!!!” – Sound familiar? I heard this from a close friend.

Friends of ours have a three-year-old girl who has so many toys, their house looks like a toy store. When received she plays with them for a few minutes and then they lie untouched, and if this continues, and it probably will, how is the child ever to value anything in the future?

This sort of thing has led to the attitude we see in many today who believe life owes them a good living. This is the fault of the parents alone, who must bear responsibility for this current viewpoint among some of today’s young people.

Exam Time – But I Know I’ll Pass!

To be sure, the poor standards of education are just another nail in the coffin if you will, for there is little doubt that standards have dropped drastically over the past three decades. The previous Labour government was to blame by continually making exams easier in an effort to massage the pass rates for GCSE’s etc. If you want to look good in the eyes of the public and show how well the education system is doing,  just lower the pass rate until everybody passes!

This attitude may have made the government look good, but when I see the levels of English in many of today’s young people it makes me shudder. They have been let down badly by the education system, for by far the greater majority are now semi-literate by old standards. They can’t spell for toffee, and as for putting a dozen words together to make an intelligent sentence, forget it! Have you ever seen ‘Teen Speak’?

You may be interested in a blog I wrote some time ago on this subject:

https://floroy1942.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/its-not-mi-falt-i-carnt-spel/

As a further example, take a look at the comments some people post on web page news items and you will see what I mean! Sometimes even the news items themselves show disgraceful errors.

See What I Mean?

In my opinion, not all problems within the education system can be laid at the door of government, for another contributing factor is the extremely poor standard of teachers. Many are hired before they are even qualified.

In my day, a teacher knew his subject inside out and you could ask any question and get a proper answer, today however, it seems some teachers do nothing more than quote from the lesson material book with little understanding of the subject in depth. Should some enterprising student ask a question they have to “look it up”.

I apologize in advance to those dedicated individuals in the teaching profession who do not fall into this group, for I know full well there are good teachers out there.

Yet one more facet to this saga is the interference of the ‘Bleeding Hearts’ Brigade (Human Rights/Politically Correct idiots) in our education system. Along with the collusion of a weak government of the time, they successfully stamped out any form of discipline in our schools by having laws passed that forbid any form of punishment for not paying attention, disrupting classes or even refusing to learn.

Physical Attacks a Daily Occurrence

Over the past two decades, more than 50% of teachers have at some time or other been attacked in the classroom by unruly pupils, some even with a knife! This is an intolerable situation, even more so because the current laws forbid any form of punishment. These same laws have given us a legacy of undisciplined youth that knows it cannot be touched, and feeds the rate of illiteracy like nothing else for they cannot be bothered to learn in school.

The Future For Many

There is without doubt a huge shock awaiting many of the current generation when they finally leave school and try to get a job. You can be fairly certain that too many will swell the queues outside the local Dole Office for they will be unemployable in anything but menial tasks.

So, because of our lack of foresight in educating and disciplining our young, we are creating a huge future burden on the Welfare System that may well be unsustainable. Not only that, and far more dangerous, we will become dependent on importing those with the necessary skills to work in industry, while our own people do the menial jobs that require no qualifications or skills.

The big problem is, can we go back to how it should be? I think not for it is next to impossible to go back!

Roy.