Manufacturing companies in Wales are in danger of going to the wall because they cannot recruit suitable employees from a potential workforce being sent out into the world of work by schools and colleges without the range of basic skills they need.

As another academic year draws to an end, the Engineering Employers’ Federation says a radical overhaul is needed of schools’ and colleges’ approach to basic skills if they are to provide the employees with the skills that companies need to survive.

The EEF is an employers’ membership organisation which works with thousands of manufacturing and non-manufacturing companies providing advice on business issues, offering tailored training programmes and representing their views at all levels of government.

It says some of the companies it works with are warning that, by the end of this year, they will not have sufficient skilled people to deliver their trading objectives – which often include a desire to expand – and are not confident about being able to find people.

The EEF says the solution lies partly in increasing the number of apprenticeship places available. But it also contests that the problem is rooted much earlier in young people’s academic careers, and that the whole way in which schools are structured needs to be changed.

It believes young people should attend the same school up to the age of at least 14, and preferably 16, with no need to change schools, lose friends or change teachers at a vulnerable age until GCSE choices or the GCSEs themselves have been undertaken. Between the ages of 16 and 19, they would then move to an establishment that caters for those choices.

The Federation’s position reflects UK Government plans announced recently by Schools Minister Lord Adonis for children to stay at the same school from age five to 18 to stop their performance dropping when they move on to secondary school.

EEF Wales spokesperson Martin Bibey said contact with, and formal surveys of, the employers they dealt with showed that companies were seriously struggling to recruit the right people because of their lack of basic skills and because schools and colleges were turning out the wrong type of people.

He added: “Recent surveys carried out by the EEF show that 80% of companies said technical staff needed to improve skills, as did 50% of management and supervisors.

“Our research shows that 76% of companies say current skills will not meet future strategic priorities – and what’s worrying is that a high percentage of firms say they find it very hard to recruit skilled manual people, citing lack of knowledge, experience, qualifications and poor attitude to employment. Graduates are also singled out as being poor, showing the most marked gap between existing and required skills, with only 50% perceived to have the basic skill required.

“A frightening 96% of companies in one of our surveys said private training was better than that provided by colleges of further education, which they criticised for poor standards of teaching, inappropriate course content, and turning out students who lacked the basic skills for the workplace and commercial environment.”

Mr Bibey said the EEF in Wales was now calling for something radical to be done with the format of the school structure and curriculum in order to improve basic skills.

“We need to get education right from pre-school up to age 16 – trying to get basic skills drummed in after 16 is too late,” he said.

“We would expect public funding to have already equipped everyone with the basic skills necessary for employment and participation in community life.

“The fact that this approach has patently failed to deliver for many individuals and employers, and continues to fail, gives some cause for concern.

“It is our contention that a radical overhaul of the structure pre-16 is required.”

Source: WalesOnline, United Kingdom
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business-in-wales/business-news/2008/08/06/companies-want-radical-overhaul-of-school-system-91466-21472140/