Standards in many schools are "woefully low", according to Tesco's chief executive, who is also a government education adviser.
Sir Terry Leahy, a member of Gordon Brown's National Council for Educational Excellence, claimed that employers were being left to "pick up the pieces".
In a speech to the IGD conference in London, he called for teachers to be given fewer instructions and for the education system to be simplified.
Leahy said: "Sadly, despite all the money that has been spent, standards are still woefully low in too many schools. Employers like us are often left to pick up the pieces.
"One thing that government could do is to simplify the structure of our education system. From my perspective there are too many agencies and bodies, often issuing reams of instructions to teachers, who then get distracted from the task at hand: teaching children."
