There is a long and proud tradition in the UK of undermining the ability of the working classes, coupled with a fear/distain of the state education system.<p>The idea that comprehensive schools are producing illiterate and innumerate school leavers plays neatly into the prejudices of journalists and business owners (the majority of whom have been privately educated), whilst simultaneously justifying the poor pay and conditions on offer to shop floor staff.<p>Anybody who has spent any time around young people in the UK will know that they are, if anything, far more literate than previous generations, which should come as no surprise since they spend a greater amount of time reading and writing on electronic devices.
I'm not a teacher, parent or someone with any formal education at all, but when I was at school (UK) I thought (and was told my teachers) that I was dumb and wouldn't amount to much. I had no idea that I had intellect until I left school at 15 and my education finally began. Some people simply do not learn well in the factory worker style education system.<p>I'd also say that I think schools in the UK (and I would imagine other countries) totally fail at teaching essential skills required for life. Financial literacy, basic cooking skills (I did home economics but it was the same course my mother did at school 30 years prior), how to actually learn things yourself (one of the most valuable skills in my opinion), how to plan and organise yourself for life, how to deal with problems that come up in life (bills, relationships, pets, whatever), how to fix things, drive/maintain a car, how credit ratings work, the value in travel and new experiences, etc.<p>My comments are based on an experience from 20 years ago but it seems that not much has improved since then. I've no idea how to solve these problems and prepare future generations, but its something I'd love to help figure out. My current assessment is that youtube feels like it provides a more valuable education system than state run schools.
I used to be a teacher in a school system that emphasized against rote learning, knowledge memorization, and numerical calculations (for physics). Well, we did do that stuff but it could only get the student a grade D or E. The massive problem was that even the teachers didn't understand what the mysterious higher level skills we were supposed to be teaching were or how to teach or assess them. The students had no hope of fair treatment. The official assessment criteria were wholistic and wordy. Numerical grades were forbidden, as was averaging scores from multiple assessments into the final, so teachers made up some grades based on feelings, or secretly used a spreadsheet that added a little random factor to make it look non-formulaic. Anyway, point is, some modern education removes the old low-level skills (mainly memorization) but doesn't replace it with anything nor even keep the useful parts of it (eg. mental arithmetic).
Counterpoint. Few people who the education system worked out for are going to be working on the department store shop floor.<p>Not that I disagree, but the opinion is coming from a very specific view point. If the kids had strong educations, would they be okay getting paid £10 an hour / £16k a year.
I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that young people going directly into retail jobs have poor functional numeracy or literacy. Firstly, those with academic skills or other skills will either be getting further education or going into a trade. So you’re left with quite a specific group of people. Then consider- is this specific to this group? I got a masters in engineering, when I turned up on day 1 was I a good engineer? No, I had very little practical experience and that matters. The idea that education makes you ready for a job is a slightly absurd standard unless we re-work our education system to have a far more practical set of courses. We can do that but that will equally have short comings.
Here is some background for people not in the UK, or perhaps not familiar with how things have changed in post 16 education. I am not an expert but I am planning to employ some people under these new schemes so have been reviewing it.<p>At 16 you can either enter more education or do an apprenticeship that includes training. Classically one might study A levels until 18 and apply for university, or go the vocational route and do an apprenticeship.<p>Companies in the retail sector like John Lewis, created retail apprenticeships. This involves getting paid £4.30 (for reference minimum wage for an adult over 23 not on an apprenticeship is £8.91) an hour to stand at a till. The company is supposed to in return provide a qualification and allow the staff 20% of their time to study for it. The government pay for the training, although larger companies have to contribute. One might suggest that the people applying for retail apprenticeships are going to be at the lower end of academic attainment.<p>Now I read this article, and I see John Lewis complaining that they are having to train there people they have contracted to train and are working for a pittance to get.
I think that this may have a lot to do with Sharon White looking to be a big beast in the Labour party in pretty short order. A stint at Ofcom followed by time at JL gives good credentials for a front bench position, possibly from the House of Lords.
We've cut the education budget every year for decade (edited down from decades). We've made people stay when they don't want to. We've poured money into the kids with the worst outcomes at everyone else's expense.<p>So this is very predictable when you actually think about it.<p>It's just that we've build a whole society around not paying for things, not investing long term, only paying attention to the loudest dumbest voices and no one thinking more than 1 election ahead.<p>I think the same seems to be happening in a lot of English-speaking countries (USA, Aus etc)
Focus on social skills, have less requirements on actual skills to ensure social status quo, everyone applause until the kids reach 25 and look for a job.<p>Relevant quote :
“To have done ten years, 11, 12 years of education, and not having, in many cases, functional literacy, certainly, pretty typically not having functional numeracy beyond the age of, I’d say, ten, 11, means that they may then have fabulous people skills and fabulous skills in terms of operating in a team but that’s almost out with the education system,” White said.
This is a pretty consistent theme around the world. A lot of the gains in educational attainment seem to have come from reducing the standard required to obtain the credentials.
John Lewis Partnership chair Sharon White:
“To have done ten years, 11, 12 years of education, and not having, in many cases, functional literacy, certainly, pretty typically not having functional numeracy beyond the age of, I’d say, ten, 11, means that they may then have fabulous people skills and fabulous skills in terms of operating in a team but that’s almost out with the education system,” White said.<p>Glass houses.
The British education system is too busy being involved in political movements to actually educate children.<p>We have a huge issue with the degree-laden failures of society ending up as teachers as pay is terrible and the bar to entry is extremely low.<p>These teachers couldn't function in the real world with their beliefs , and so they take it upon themselves to brainwash their young and captive audiences in lieu of actually educating them.