Last year 2020/21 359,115 students graduated from UK Universities of whom 46% were awarded a 2:1. According to a report by Trading Economics, World Bank figures show the percentage of the UK labour force who had undertaken some form of advanced education was 84.51% and yet in November 2022 a survey by the ONS stated that 13.3% of businesses in their survey were experiencing a shortage of workers. In September 2022 according to Government figures there were approximately 1.19 million vacancies in the UK compared with approximately 1.3 million people who are unemployed. From all of this we can only conclude that there’s no skill shortage, just a shortage of the right skills.
The fact that we have so much education and yet a huge skills shortage proves that our education system is very productive at producing skilled people but not effective when it comes to producing the skills society really needs.
Now let us consider the real problem. The technology industry which has an effect on every other area of the UK economy, but especially areas such as manufacturing is suffering. A recent report by Robert Walters the recruitment firm declared that 70% of employers in the technology sectors anticipated a shortage.
If you go and have a look at the UK Skilled Worker Visa Shortage Occupations you will see that the vast majority fall into one of four categories: Heath and care services, scientists, engineers and information technology. Somewhat interestingly there is a separate list for education and here we see the real problem. Apart from teachers of Gaelic there is a shortage of secondary teachers in, guess what? Maths, physics, computer science and modern foreign languages.
Is it a coincidence that the shortage of secondary teachers in STEM subjects reflects the shortage of skills required by employers? I suspect not.
Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Education is not working. We need a root and branch reorganisation of the education system. The days of schools producing canon fodder for industry and commerce (which was what was required when I was at school) have gone. We don’t need people who can regurgitate irrelevant facts and perform tasks that they immediately forget after they have passed the exam and got a piece of paper. We need people who can contribute to the way society is going and has gone. We need all round thinkers. Yes, we need writers and poets and artists but our great artists didn’t learn their skills at school or university, they learnt by doing (maybe with help from somewhere like art school). We need people with practical skills. I don’t need my nurse to have multiple qualifications, I need someone who can care and look after me, I want my doctor or surgeon to hold the qualifications but most of all I want them to be experienced. We want lateral thinkers with cross subject skills. We want engineers who understand graphic design and psychology in order to be able to deal with AI. We want finance people who understand engineering and software development to be able to cope with digitalisation. We need lawyers and police who have similar skills to be able to deal with cyber crime.
Most of all we need enthusiastic, well rounded, thinking, flexible, highly imaginative human beings, and of all our skills those seem to be the ones where we are failing. You don’t get that by repetitive formal examinations, you get that by allowing people to experience as much as possible and that’s where most of our education fails miserably.
So many people are highly skilled but in one small area or in the wrong area.
Time for change.
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