Core skills resits 'need more work'

Poor standards of literacy and numeracy among young people have been a serious bugbear of British employers over a number of years.

A 2011 study by the Confederation of British Industry found that 42 per cent of employers were not happy with the basic use of English by school and college leavers, with 35 per cent concerned with levels of basic numeracy.

The skills deficit is highlighted by the fact that 285,000 young people aged 19 in 2012 left secondary school at 16 without a C or better in both GCSE English and maths.

In a bid to address the problem, the government is from this year requiring that all pupils who fail to achieve a C grade in English or maths GCSE by the time they finish secondary school continue to study the subjects in post-16 education. The policy, proposed in Alison Wolf's review of vocational education published in May 2011, coincides with the raising of the education participation age to 17.