CYP Now - Youth employment relies on opportunities, not just skills

Twenty-five years ago, the Confederation of British Industry published a report calling on business to forge better links with secondary education, particularly through helping pupils to understand the world of work. This was, it argued, as much a matter of self-interest as anything else: a "demographic time-bomb" was about to explode as the population of young people leaving school decreased by a third and so only those businesses with good links with schools would retain any chance of selecting the pick of the crop.

Today, as about one million 16- to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, the Make Neets History report from Impetus - The Private Equity Foundation, calls for the creation of a Secretary of State for school-to-work transitions. This report is one of the latest to express a long line of concerns and criticisms about the relationship between the education system and the labour market. T R Fyvel, in his book The Insecure Offenders, asked in the 1960s how well schools were preparing young people for the technological opportunities that lay ahead of them.

Over the following decade, Prime Minister Jim Callaghan referred to conversations with employers that routinely deplored the way schools prepared young people for work; the Youth Training Scheme sought to provide a bridge to work by equipping young people more effectively for the jobs available. The emergence of the "Neet" phenomenon has prompted more debate as to whether this was primarily a product of poor labour market supply by schools and vocational training, or weak demand from a diminishing youth labour market.

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