Employability needs to be at the heart of education reforms – IoD

THE Government needs to put employability at the heart of any and all its proposed educational reforms, according to the chairman of the Institute of Directors in the West Midlands.

John Rider is concerned that a central plank of the lobbying that the IoD, along with the CBI and others, has been pushing is in danger of being lost in the rush to claim credit for the next “new idea”.

“What employers want is young people ready for the workplace. We need an educational system that transcends election dates and government terms of office,” he said.

“There is no mention of ‘employability’ in either of the party’s proposals, and this is an important issue for our members.

“With high youth unemployment we need to be working harder on skills shortages and steering more into the manufacturing and engineering side of the apprenticeship schemes.

“There is a limit to how many more hairdressers the UK needs,” he said.

Rider pointed out that there were signs of Chinese wage rates rising towards parity with some European countries and that the UK needed to be ready for the potential return of some of the low cost, high run production work that had been lost to the Far East and emerging economies.

“Over the next six or seven years, there will be opportunities to win back business in this area, and we need to be ready,” he said.