Last updated: 28 Feb 2005

A range of employers and learners talk about how the curriculum might change to better prepare young people for the world of work.

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'I think what we try to do with people is instil confidence into them, because they do come in and they're very shy, very quiet and we try to make them come out from their shells.'

'I think if we try to add more and more things into the curriculum we are in danger of adding to an already bowing level of education that we are trying to cram in.'

'We try tending to wait until kids are 14-16 before we start talking about work. I think that it should be done at a much earlier age group such as 8-9.'

'I don't think the curriculum is keeping up with the pace of change, things like the internet.'

'I think it's a lot more than presentation skills, it's about communication skills. I think one of the things happening to youngsters coming to workplace is that they're ghettoised in terms of their own generation. They could chat away happily with their friends but if you put them into an adult environment they can't even have an adult conversation. Presentation skills is about two steps up from that.'

'I think people skills are the most important things.'

'I think the main thing that would've been useful to learn when I was back at school would've been time management and organisational skills.'

'Those are exactly the skills that I use now day-to-day at work, but I didn't have the chance to develop at school: presentation skills, how to work within teams, how to prioritise your time, how to juggle different projects - those are all the skills I need on a daily basis at work, but I didn't get the chance at school.'

'I think careers advice as well, because I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do.'

'We only had a week's experience in an actual work place, but once you get there, they don't let you actually do or know what the day-to-day running is.'

'I did have work experience in environments like sitting in and shadowing somebody, I went to work with a teacher for the day, but didn't actually properly get the full understanding of what a business environment is, things like public section, the private sector.'

'We had a small business week one week when I was about 14-15 where we set up small companies and traded with each other and with friends and family. It was quite good in terms of learning about what sells, what customers want and really sort of focusing things around customers' needs.'

'When I was at school I got the opportunity to work in the working world, but it was sort of left at that. Once I came back into school I just floated back into my old school subjects and there was no follow up material, no 'how did I react when I was out there?'

'I had the chance to work experience. I worked in a solicitors' firm for a week and that actually was good, because that made me realise that perhaps law wasn't the area that I wanted to focus in on. But that was the only chance I had for working experience. I think that you should get a broader range of work experience throughout school because that gives you a better idea of what's out there and what you might be interested in doing. I think you can get quite a blinkered view on what working can be and obviously when you leave school and go to the working world it's not really quite what you think it will be.'