Lambert: School leavers 'dire'

Published on Tuesday 15 August 2006 01:54

RICHARD Lambert, the CBI's new director-general, yesterday warned that the "dire" quality of school leavers was putting science-based industries at risk.

The head of the business group was speakingbefore the publication of A-level results this week, and said that many teenagers had been put off science subjects because of a stripped-down science curriculum, a lack of specialist teachers and lacklustre careers advice.

Lambert added that his members were worried about the long-term decline in numbers studying A-level physics, chemistry and mathematics and the fall in the numbers of people going on to study those subjects at university.

"They [employers] see first hand the young people who leave school and university looking for a job, and compare them to what they need - and increasingly are looking overseas for graduates."

Lambert's comments come a week after Alan Smithers, an education expert at Buckingham University, warned that physics was in long-term decline in schools and universities.

Alan Wood, the chief executive of Siemens UK, was also reported recently as saying that "embarrassingly large numbers of people" left secondary school unable even to read and write properly, and that his company has struggled to find well-trained school leavers to take up apprenticeships.

Lambert said the CBI was calling on the government to do more to recruit inspirational teachers.

He added that the combined double-science GCSE did not provide the grounding needed to take sciences at A-level, and suggested all state pupils should have the right to study physics, chemistry and biology separately at GCSE, as is the case in many independent schools.