Some school leavers are just not up to the job
Monday 19th September 2011, 1:00PM BST.
A STUDY aimed at developing a skills strategy for Guernsey has revealed that some school leavers have literacy and numeracy shortfalls, unhealthy attitudes to interviews and work and little interest in enterprise.
The Frontier Economics report compiled for the island’s Skills Strategy Development Group states that half of all jobseekers have no qualifications and struggle to hold down a job.
‘Many of those who are seeking work may not possess the basic numeracy and literacy skills that employers require… the practical skills we use to write job application letters, understand instructions, do mental arithmetic and read simple charts and tables.
‘They are seen by many employers as the absolute minimum level of skills that they would expect from employees.’
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We do teach these things in schools – we track them in all subjects and weave them into our lessons.
However, as the old saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water…”
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I am blaming the schools for not correcting pupils grammer or spelling and teaching from videos is certainly not a traditional way of teaching. What happend to reading a book?
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“am blaming the schools for not correcting pupils grammer or spelling and teaching from videos is certainly not a traditional way of teaching. What happend to reading a book?”
That’ll be ‘grammar’, then?
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@Teacher…I should hope so, it does seem worrying that despite the annual fanfare of “improving” GCSE results pupils are still lagging behind in the essentials as the above report seems to indicate.
I have read other news articles where similar conclusions have been mentioned, particularly in relation to school leavers and their inability to cope with the working world where the ongoing school culture of praise for doing almost anything however mundane or elementary is suddenly replaced with bosses looking for a days work for a days pay. One article revealed that more children (younger than school leavers in this case) could use a computer effectively but couldn’t tie their own shoe laces.
@ Sian, I agree, there do seem to be some questionable teaching methods employed, there is a class subject in some schools called “learning to learn” what is that all about?
GrammAr (Sian, pay attention..!!) or spelling isn’t often corrected in school work other than English.
Maybe Deputy Steer and her committee would do better to improve real standards rather than “window dressing” with new uniforms, or quoting exam results statistics.
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@Sian Staples
I take it you meant to say, “pupils’ grammar”.
One grammatical error and one spelling mistake; which highlights what the editorial is trying to point out.
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… oh and it’s “happened”, not “happend”.
My work is done …
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How is it that whenever educasion (or the lack thereof) is mentioned some burk(s) feels the need to korrect peeples spelling and grammar and ignorees the actual problem. Is it a “look at me I am betta educated than u pesants” thing, or wot?
Who cares if a posted opinion is not splet right and grammaticallery correct.
What skools should do is teach the use of Word & Excel, when the kids get to work we can teach them maths by fining them for every spelling mistake and maths error committed on a weekly basis.
Only two things teach anybody anything – physical and/or financial pain, and even then the lesson learnt is apt to be forgotten and the error repeated.
Jonah
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Where ignorance is bliss……
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That’s what you get for dumbing down the syllabus and making it just about possible for all kids to get a so-called pass in their exams! Only a couple of weeks ago the GP was singing the praises of the 99% pass rates….!
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@Ted
Ignorance is not bliss, not anymore, in Guernsey.
There was a time when some of those who left or fell out of school, went off into the real world, couldn’t cope with the pressure or high costs of living elsewhere and came back to roost, making a living with daddies’ spans, tomatoes, etc. In later times, just roosted with their parents.
This is not exactly a new story in schools here today, it comes up about every 2 years.
I deplore the pathetic excuse handed out by Teacher, in that ‘you can lead a horse to water’. Do we really need ‘teachers’ in our society who can not conjure up sufficient intelligence speak, other than to put their feelings behind ‘old sayings’. I will bring myself down to that level of ignorance and quote ‘those who can, do, those who can’t, teach.
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