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Lack of soft skills in today’s school leavers

The time of year is nearly upon us; teenagers across the country are eagerly anticipating the outcome of their GCSE and A-Level’s. Soon, schools and colleges will be flooded with former pupils, crying with joy or perhaps sadness, as they receive their results. What’s the next step for these youngsters?

Up and down the country there is a concern about young people and their ability to leave school and contribute to society by finding and maintaining a job. In 2014, Barclays conducted research into what businesses considered to be the problem and the results were less than complimentary. Although key skills such as maths, English and IT were noted as being important, businesses were particularly concerned with the level of soft skills exhibited by school leavers. In other words, not the technical ability of school leavers but the ability of that young person to turn up on time, behave acceptably within the work place, hold a conversation with clients or suppliers, or even dress appropriately.

Given that research and my recent visits to schools in the region, it would appear to me that some schools are struggling to arm pupils with the requisite soft skills with which to find and maintain gainful employment. In my opinion, it comes down to discipline and drawing the line between what is socially expected and what is not. Discipline within the school system has softened over time. In my time at school, it was commonplace for poorly disciplined pupils to be given the cane. These days, if a teacher were to raise their hands to a pupil, for whatever reason, they would no doubt be invited to the police station and charged. Our social situation has changed in respect of methods of correcting ill-discipline and perhaps rightly so. However, by solving one problem, I feel that we have created another. We have lost our way in terms of maintaining high levels of soft skills.

For individuals who wish to develop these skills, there are training providers who provide support. Additionally, one project which we have recently launched in Newcastle is JEF-CEP. JEF-CEP is an acronym for Joint Enterprise, Forces- Construction Employability Pathway. We designed the program to offer over 200 school leavers in the North East region, the opportunity to be put through their paces for 12 weeks. Within that time, candidates experience three weeks spent within the Armed Forces, eight weeks spent with a construction skills training provider and a one-week residential stay at Kingswood residential activity centre in Hexham. The time spent with the Armed Forces is intended to develop soft skills, such as communication, teambuilding, punctuality, independence, character building, presentation skills, and self- discipline. Following that, the young learners then complete eight weeks learning multi-trade construction, which includes wood working, plastering, roofing and bricklaying. Those who successfully complete the program will have learnt valuable social skills and earned themselves a Level One certificate in Multi-trade Construction.

The benefit of JEF-CEP and programs like it are: to provide the candidate with a solid foundation course to allow them to develop the technical skills to take forward onto a full apprenticeship and, provide the candidate with the soft skills necessary to secure employment.

I strongly believe that courses such as JEF-CEP ought to be seen as a targeted provision which intends to develop a school leaver in such a way so as to round off their skill set. From an employer’s perspective, anyone completing this type of course has already shown a commitment to future learning, and will most likely make a great apprentice.

The question then becomes, will additional courses such as JEF-CEP work? The answer I suspect is yes, but only to those that wish to develop their soft skills. Perhaps the more appropriate questions to ask are, can we afford to do nothing therefore allowing this problem to escalate? Can we afford to do nothing and allow the younger generation to become the generation for the unemployed? I strongly suspect that the answer is no.

I’m sure plenty of school leavers will be daunted by the upcoming decisions about their own future. It is hard to know if any decision is the right one, especially when it’s about something that is yet to happen. If I could offer one piece of advice to these youngsters, it would be to be as well-equipped and prepared for the working world as possible. Those that have not yet applied for apprenticeships, or feel they need that extra push to develop their soft skills, whilst dipping their proverbial toe in the Armed Forces, JEF-CEP, or courses like it, could be well worth considering as a next step.

For more information, visit www.nctskills.com

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Patricia Wilkinson .