OECD survey highlights skills problem among young Britons
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Version 0 of 1. Britain’s low-skilled young people face the highest barriers to entering the workforce compared with their peers in other industralised countries, because a lack of employable skills sees them shut out of the labour market, according to a new report by the OECD. The report published on Wednesday found that UK youth not in employment, education or training – the group known as Neets – lagged well behind the rest of their age group in terms of literacy and problem solving, with the combined gap being the worst among the countries surveyed by the OECD. The OECD’s 2015 Skills Outlook recommends that British policymakers “concentrate on helping the Neets to re-engage with education or the labour market,” especially in tackling the high proportion of those aged 16-to-24 who leave school without completing their secondary education. The OECD report is based on data from 2012, and compared the skills and abilities of young people in 22 countries as they entered the workforce. The authors stressed the importance of “high-quality pre-primary education for all children to help mitigate disparities in education outcomes and to give every child a strong start to their education careers. “In addition, teachers and school leaders can also identify low achievers early on to provide them with the support or special programmes they may need to help them attain sufficient skills and prevent them from dropping out of school.” Successive governments have sought to solve the problem by requiring young people in England to receive some form of education or training between 16 and 18, which took effect last year. The result has been a decrease in the number of Neets, although the problem remains because young people can still leave school after the age of 16, while the legislation lacks teeth. Currently, more than 130,000 16- to 18-year-olds are not in education, employment or training. Overall, one in eight young people in England are classified as Neets, the lowest proportion in a decade. “Many of the Neets are far from the labour market not only due to their low skills but also because they have withdrawn from the labour force,” the OECD noted. A Department for Education spokesman said: “Following years of stagnation in international education league tables, this government’s relentless focus on standards is ensuring that thousands more young people are able to read, write and add up properly. “We will continue to build on this success by ensuring all young people leave school with the knowledge and skills they need to compete with their peers from across the globe.” The gap in scores from tests of literacy between the Neets and those in employment of the same age was nearly double the average gap found elsewhere in the OECD. British youth outside the workforce did nearly 10% worse than their employed peers in tests of problem solving, placing them last overall out of 19 countries. The OECD was also critical of the abilities of British young people who went on to higher education. “The skills of young graduates are low compared to those of other countries,” the authors said, with statistics showing the share of new graduates with low numeracy skills was the second highest after the US. Cognitive skills are among the lowest in the OECD across the entire age group, it also found. |