Schools are not preparing young people for jobs

Two quotes in your article (Schools are ‘pipeline’ to joblessness for many people, says ex-Labour adviser, 21 May) struck a chord with me: “a joyless education system that focused too heavily on passing exams” and “the level of vitriol and hatred these young people used when talking about schools”.

I worked on the government’s Youth Opportunities Programme and Youth Training Scheme several years ago, and latterly on the Youth Offending Scheme as a volunteer for more than 20 years – and the quotes did not surprise me in the least. It was bad enough in secondary modern schools, where the majority of children took no exams at all. In the comprehensives and latterly in the academies, every effort is made to show off the school through its exam results, watched at a distance by those students with little or nothing to show for about 10 years of schooling.

As an adviser, after being assigned a school I always asked the headteacher if I could shadow a pupil for a day, and by the end of the day I was quite prepared to misbehave. Lecture after lecture with little attempt to involve students in a meaningful way. It was just like being at university.

Perhaps the trainers of teachers should scrap their notes and practise a more interactive process that school teachers could copy and would better suit the kind of students that this report is focusing on.

In my first job as a teacher at a secondary modern school, the head asked me if I would run a building construction course, at a time when children could leave at Christmas and Easter. All my group stayed on until the summer. It was interactive, but it would have been a lot better if I had been trained to work that way. David SelbyDerby

Youth unemployment is very real, even in relatively affluent areas of north London. My son had no difficulty finding a weekend job at Greggs while he was at college in 2023, aged 17. However, after leaving college, it took several months for him to finally secure a job in hospitality.

I was heavily involved in supporting him throughout the process and I genuinely do not think he would have succeeded without encouragement, motivation and practical help.

I came to the UK from Italy at the age of 19 in the late 1980s. Back then, finding work was straightforward. You could walk into a jobcentre and often leave with a job the same day. Employment was accessible enough to support young people while studying or starting out in life.

My son and I visited a local jobcentre expecting to find employment opportunities, but instead found hardly any jobs advertised. The focus appeared to be largely on benefits and support services. I found this genuinely shocking.

Having now seen the situation first-hand, I can better understand why youth unemployment is rising. I feel sorry for young people. There is clearly far more that the government and public services could do to support young people into work. Failing to do so not only lets down a generation, but also harms the economy and society.Mara MussoLondon

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