It's time to put renewed emphasis on life skills for our young people

The National

2 days ago

Worse, the same report suggests that the prospect of securing a good job is just as dependent now as it was 20 years ago on who you know, rather than what you know.
Perhaps most worrying, the report suggests that in a world where the nature of work is changing very rapidly, young people are being prepared by the education system for a career in traditional professions which might not even exist in the very near future, so significant is going to be the impact of AI.
You could dismiss the report, except for the fact that it comes from a source as authoritative as the OECD. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is a Paris-based think tank that is, admittedly, dominated by the world's richest countries, but it is also noted for producing the best comparison statistics on education in the world.
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In fact, the report is so persuasive because what the researchers did was compare current world data with data from 20 years ago, when they first undertook work of this sort, and they would appear to be shocked to find that so little has changed.
I am not surprised by this. If anyone had told me when I was at university, in the 1970s, that I would be making most of my income as a social media content creator, I would have been bemused by the suggestion. No-one had heard of the internet, or YouTube, or electronic recording data of the type we now use. Nor did any of the technology we use to consume social media exist back then.
I make the point for a good reason. If my own career has changed this radically, and the rate of change in the nature of work is increasing and things are changing more often, what is it that we should now be training young people so that they have skills that may support them for decades, rather than a year or two at most after they leave either school or university?
I have had six university appointments over the past 28 years and I appreciate the value of an academic education. But what I also realise is that this type of education, which dominates Highers and university courses, does not suit most people. In fact, in many disciplines, unless you want to be an academic, it is not much use at all. That is most especially true as far too many courses do not encourage much critical thinking at undergraduate level.
All that means I am not surprised by what the OECD has found.
I know that there might be exceptions to my comments in the case of some applied disciplines, such as medicine or veterinary science, and some engineering courses, but even then, these subjects exist in a real-world context once the person studying them has left university. To ignore this fact when they are training is quite ridiculous.
So, what do I suggest we should do? I think the time has come for the unnecessary focus on academic disciplines in education to go. If the tiny minority who want to pursue a career in that area need concentrated training, that is for postgraduate education, above all else.
At the level of Highers, in particular, the focus has to be very heavily on life skills.
Of course, two or three more specialist subjects should be taken, but as important as these might be, so are essential and transferable life skills to ensure that people have the opportunity to change careers as time develops, as will inevitably happen to almost everyone now.
So, what skills do I think are required? Try this list, which are things that matter to me now as an employer (which I am):
Effective written communication
Effective verbal communication
Applied numeracy, including how to construct business-oriented spreadsheets
Basic bookkeeping, accounting and budgeting
An outline of the tax system
Website creation and management
The essentials of marketing
Time management
Basic employment law and contract law
There is no job that exists for anyone over the age of 21 that does not require most skills, and most young people arrive in employment missing many of them.
If, however, young people arrived with them, it would then be relatively easy for employers to provide more vocational training after the age of 21, using apprenticeship schemes if appropriate.
Even those schemes are, however, at present, being hindered by a lack of these basic essentials, even among graduates.
My suggestion is that at least 40% of the required undergraduate courses should also be cut on these issues. The result would be degrees that might be useful, and more fun to study, which is an issue that really matters to me when I know that so many students do not get very excited by their undergraduate university courses at present.
Scotland could make these changes. Everyone would be a winner.