Life skills need to be at the heart of Labour’s curriculum

When Gove was demoted and moved away from his beloved education brief you could almost hear the sound of champagne corks popping in staff rooms across England. Yet two months after the most high profile demotion of this parliament, Labour’s policy on education remains one its most underdeveloped. This is not necessarily a bad thing, saving the education debate until nearer the election could be a shrewd move for the party given that all but one of the Education department is privately educated. Not to mention the fact that 47% of voters thought that Gove did a bad job as Secretary of State.

However, this still leaves the question of what Labour’s approach should be. 13.6% of 16 to 24 year olds are still NEETs despite the supposed economic upturn and 42% of employers are having to give young employees remedial training in numeracy, literacy and ICT. This is clearly not good enough, and the continuing decline of the youth service in almost every Local Authority will only serve to worsen the situation, young people will lose the one service dedicated to their personal development.

The Tories response to employers has been to increase the academic rigour of the exams system, but this is a misguided approach. Moves such as removing the spoken English component of the English GCSE and Gove’s dismissal of basic ICT in favour of Computer Science are brilliant examples of this. Instead of listening to employers’ concerns, the Tories have, time and time again, dismissed the idea that schools should prepare young people for the work place by helping them develop the basic skills they will need to function properly.

Labour needs to respond decisively to employers’ concerns by reinstating the place of spoken English and basic ICT skills on the curriculum. These are qualifications that young people take to prepare them for a workplace in which they will need to be confident speakers and literate in the art of the spreadsheet.

In addition, Labour should commit to putting the basic skills required to get a job on the national curriculum, too little is done to show young people how to write a good CV, or do well at an interview. The modern jobs market is fierce and competitive, those lacking in the art of self promotion can and will be left behind. Alongside creating jobs, Labour must show young people how they can secure them.

Putting life skills at the heart of our education system isn’t just the right thing to do to help young people survive in a competitive labour market; it’s an electorally prudent tactic. The UK Youth Parliament have been campaigning for the last two years on “A Curriculum for Life”, the idea behind this being that the education system should prepare young people for life after school and after exams. This shows that young people feel just as passionately about this as employers, and this could be what drives them to the ballot in an election where every vote will count.