Employers have been lamenting the poor quality of the
students coming out of the school system for years. Poor skills in
English, maths, and the inability to communicate and work in teams
top their list of concerns.
Now a new diploma
(
click for story), which employers themselves have helped to
design, promises a step change in the quality and skills of young
people entering the workforce or preparing to study IT at
university.
Many will be watching to see how the diploma, the first school
qualification to be designed by employers, takes off.
If it succeeds, it could reverse the steady decline in the
number of young people, particularly women, studying technology and
going on to careers in IT.
The diploma will address the need to combine business and
communication skills with technical knowledge. School students will
learn how companies work, how to manage projects, and how to write
business proposals, alongside programming and networking.
Creating a new qualification that meets the needs of employers
from scratch is a major achievement, but much more needs to be done
to ensure it is a success.
Unless the diploma wins the hearts and minds of students, their
parents and teachers, it will die a death, like so many
well-intentioned initiatives in the past.
It can only succeed if employers actively support the schools
taking on the qualification. It could be as simple as sending an IT
director to talk to youngsters, offering work experience, or
sponsoring a training day for teachers.
If the diploma fails, everyone will lose. Shortages of IT staff
with the business and technology skills needed for the future will
inevitably hit profits and growth, both of individual companies and
of the UK as a whole.
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