Opportunities to Export - Somerset Chamber of Commerce

You can find the Somerset Chamber of Commerceon Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.Rupert’s ReviewWhy, oh why do our nationalpoliticians enter into theirannual summer kick-aroundusing GCSE and A-Level studentsas the ball? Every year weendure it and from whicheverparty are in government oropposition.Children are not as ‘bright’ as they used to be; teachersare not as committed as they used to be; exams areharder or easier (on whichever side of the fence you sit)than they used to be; and Michael Gove (or hispredecessors) is a nutter. I am getting lamentably tiredof this boring rhetoric as there is little evidence that anyof those accusations are true, but the fact is that wecontinue to hear from Chamber members that theystruggle to recruit quality youngsters to fulfil the dutiesrequired.I have seen this debate unfold from both sides of the‘divide’. Firstly as a parent I recall the hard work that myown children put in to gain good GCSE and A-Levelresults, and with a father like theirs, it was hard work!Conversely, from 13 years’ experience of supporting thebusiness community, I have constantly heardbusinesses crying out for committed young people thatare ready for work and keen to learn.So what does ‘ready for work’ mean, as there is no cleardefinition to help a young person, or indeed teacher toteach it?To summarise the views of many business people I talkto, ‘ready for work’ means: having sound numeracy andliteracy skills; good timekeeping; correct dress sense forthe job in hand; an ability to listen and learn;communicate and ask questions; show some initiative;and most importantly, wanting to do a good job.Where I will take issue is with some in our educationsystem who for ‘ready for work’ read ‘achieved atschool’. Our children are legally bound to be in full timeeducation from five years old to 16 years old (with manystaying until 18) and it is a real shame that theattributes of someone who is ready for work are not thesame attributes that are achieved during their schoollife.One nightmare story came from a good employer whowas looking for a new apprentice. He interviewed onelad who turned up 10 minutes late with his trousersbelow his buttocks and proceeded to text someoneduring the interview. He did not get the job, and willstruggle to get any job, I would suggest.The Chamber believes there is a flaw in the delivery ofour curriculum and that is space and time to link thesubject matter of what is taught to career or jobopportunities in our locality. Don’t tell a student thatwith Physics and/or Chemistry they can be a rocketscientist when the chances of that happening is lessthan winning the lottery, when the students could betold that (with the same subject successes) they mightbuild helicopters in Yeovil, or work in nuclear power atHinkley Point, or design and make aerosols inWellington, and so on.Somehow we have to work together to inspire a greaterpercentage of young people to learn for purpose and tothen offer them challenging career opportunities here inSomerset as a substitute for decades of debt followinguniversity.Our PatronsA big thank you to the Patrons of the Somerset Chamber of Commerce, whose continuedsupport is vital to the growth of the ChamberPrevious pageFRONT COVER IMAGE COURTESY SIMON YORK PHOTOGRAPHYNext page