The MSA (Motor Schools Association) has called for learning to drive to be added to the curriculum to help combat youth unemployment (Newslink).
The report’s authors called for a more strategic approach to ensure that local educational provision is joined up and caters for the diverse needs of young people as they move from education to employment.
Andy Pearce, a London-based HR director, said the lack of reference to driving was an oversight.
He said: “I don’t know whether it is because ‘driving’ is not a PC activity nowadays, but the fact remains being able to drive opens the way to millions of jobs in the UK. Many job ads state the need for a driving licence to be held by successful candidates.
“I can’t help but feel that if we included learning to drive in the post-17 syllabus we would vastly improve school leavers’ chances of finding work.”
The IPPR report was looking at youth unemployment and the skills necessary to move youngsters from education to employment. Newspaper ads clearly show there is a need for a driving licence for a lot of jobs. Students learning from a QUALIFIED instructor at school rather than mum or dad must be a good thing. That said increasing the number of young drivers, some who may have waited for 3 or 4 years, may increase the casualty stats. I would prefer they were working, paying tax for my pension rather than me paying for their “dole”!
Peter London
0
Hundreds of thousands of people in jobs commute using buses and trains every day. Why should modern day students be given any special consideration?
If they want a job they go and seek it knowing that there is going to be a cost or a time when they will have to commute. My late wife as a teenager spent one and half hours twice daily on buses in order to work in central Manchester. 3 hours a day. Plus if more people used public transport then there would be less pollution and far less traffic congestion.
The trouble is that so many youngsters have been spoilt by being taken and picked up from school in cars and they don’t know of any other form of transport. Spoilt by their parents.
This is a non starter in my opinion.
bob craven Lancs
0
Thanks Keith – if you knew the volume of typing I do in a single day, the speed at which I have to do it to get through it all. Since email and the web made it possible and necessary, you might understand better my occasional typo, and even my occasional spelling mistake which is not just a typo.
In my view such errors, in an off-the-cuff web site comment are more understandable than in national newspapers who surely should do better. That said, I have been told recently that even national newspapers no longer use sub-editors, and that this explains why so many such errors now get into print.
One final point – if you can identify any grammatical error, as opposed to just hitting the wrong key, I would be interested as I am always keen to improve my own standards as well as those of others.
Idris Francis Petersfield
0
Idris it is worth checking ones own spelling and grammar prior to posting a criticism of an education system.
Keith Doyle
0
Given the abysmal standards of the young these days in reading, writing and arithmetic, let alone anything more complex, I would have thought that whatever resources and time are available would be better spent remedying those defects of our failing education system.
Just two examples – last week the Telegraph financial pages cofused “principle” and “principal” and those of the Daily Mail yesterday referred to “The Isle of White” – and those are the people do DID get jobs!
Idris Francis Petersfield
0