Barclays calls on government to improve work-readiness of school leavers

Barclays has published a new employability report that calls on the government to improve the work-readiness and skills of school leavers.

This comes from hearing businesses highlight their difficulties in hiring an appropriately skilled workforce, which hampers their ability to grow.

The report explores the root causes behind this, and how to develop the core employability skills of young people.

It specifically makes recommendations on how to accelerate the closing of the skills gap and expresses how empowering individuals to develop their aspirations and skills is also essential to grow the economy. These skills include communication, problem-solving, creativity, resilience, adaptability, proactivity, leadership, networking, enterprise, and more.

With high youth unemployment rates in the UK, Barclays created the LifeSkills programme 12 years ago, which has since helped millions of young people to develop the core skills that businesses are looking for. The programme has demonstrated what works well and how young people can be prepared to move from education to the workplace.

By sharing this expertise and knowledge, Barclays believes that it is in a unique position to help tackle the skills gap.

Matt Hammerstein, chief executive of the UK corporate bank and head of public policy and corporate responsibility, said: “To help business, we need to get to a place where we can support the development of core, transferable employability skills of young people. This is vital, not only to see young people develop their aspirations and skills for their personal advancement, but also for the growth of our economy and businesses.

“And that is why I’m proud that Barclays LifeSkills has launched this new report.”

Based on years of extensive, quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the Barclays LifeSkills programme as well as its experience with educators and learners and insights from corporate and business clients, Barclays has created five policy recommendations:

· It is crucial that Skills England consult openly with employers and relevant organisations in the development of the standardised skills taxonomy and ensure that business needs and comprehensive definitions of employability skills are adequately reflected.

· Through the Curriculum Review, the government should explicitly introduce employability skills within each relevant curriculum area across Key Stages 3 to 5, aligned to the taxonomy created by Skills England. Multiple opportunities should be provided to students to recognise, practise and demonstrate these skills and provide context as to why these skills are vital for their futures and careers.

· The new Ofsted education inspection framework should have an explicit focus on work readiness and employability skills development when assessing an institution’s provision and its capability to support young people’s personal development, paying particular attention to support for disadvantaged learners.

· The government should use the review of the education leadership National Professional Qualification frameworks as an opportunity to help aspiring and existing education leaders learn how to create a whole school focus on developing young people’s employability skills while also providing a framework to support young people who are disadvantaged.

· Include employability skills within the definition of educational outcomes as part of the guidance on Pupil Premium funding, with the aim to ensure that disadvantaged young people are appropriately supported.

The full ‘Workforce ready: Supporting young people with the employability skills that businesses need for growth’ report looks at these policy recommendations in more depth and closely investigates the challenges and barriers that businesses face.

It can be read here.