There was a report
on Wales’
education problems last week (nothing new there) which had a spokesperson from
one of the ‘business’ organisations saying that the education system was ‘letting
employers down’. It’s an interesting
perspective on what the education system is for.
That the education
system in Wales
is currently letting our children down is not a proposition which many would
argue against. And since part of any
education system should be to prepare our young people for what they will face
after leaving full-time education, then it follows that the ‘product’ from the
education system may not always be what employers want.
But it’s the
presumption in the expression that leaves me uneasy. Preparing people for the world of work is one
thing; turning out people who meet employers’ specifications is quite
another. It’s a perspective which a
number of people have expressed recently in relation to what they insist on calling
’soft’ degrees in university; and some have gone further in suggesting that a
lot of what is taught is ‘useless’ because it doesn’t make people more
employable.
Falling to give
people the skills which make them employable is certainly letting them down,
but over-concentration on that narrow perspective runs the risk of devaluing
learning for the sake of learning.
Having employable school-leavers may help boost society’s material
wealth, but material wealth is not the only thing which enriches us.
Certainly,
politicians should listen to what the needs of the workplace are, but they
shouldn’t allow that to define and constrain the education which we provide for
our young people. There’s more to
education than providing employment fodder.
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