The state of UK's education and why employers are weary
Discussion
Good article in the Times about how PC and "fair-for-all" policies are slowly driving the employers to look out of GB's borders.
Most recent example: my team has just given 2 summer work placement positions to business schools students. Out of 37 applicants, 12 were foreign, all have gone through the first stage of the selection process (HR). Out of the 25 remaining Brits, 14 were rejected based on their spelling and syntax.
The work placement will include writing texts for brochures, in English first and then have them translated by an agency. So 1 part of the recruitment process was to write a short one page essay on a very simple subject. One of the HR lady here is Austrian, she felt really bad correcting British's students' copies and having to tell them that their basic writing skills weren't up to the required standards. "Would of", "Their/they're" etc... they were all in there.
Final result: 1xGerman boy and 1xEnglish girl got selected. Ironically, that girl is a student at... EM Lyon, France and receives regular English lessons from teachers who left the UK a while ago.
The allusion to the basic handshake and "hello, good morning sir" is also quite telling.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnist...
Real question is, what can be done? I have just become a father and I don't want my little girl to grow up thinking that all is fair and easy when in reality this sort of soft education do not prepare you for the outside world's reality.
edited because I wasn't paying attention
Most recent example: my team has just given 2 summer work placement positions to business schools students. Out of 37 applicants, 12 were foreign, all have gone through the first stage of the selection process (HR). Out of the 25 remaining Brits, 14 were rejected based on their spelling and syntax.
The work placement will include writing texts for brochures, in English first and then have them translated by an agency. So 1 part of the recruitment process was to write a short one page essay on a very simple subject. One of the HR lady here is Austrian, she felt really bad correcting British's students' copies and having to tell them that their basic writing skills weren't up to the required standards. "Would of", "Their/they're" etc... they were all in there.
Final result: 1xGerman boy and 1xEnglish girl got selected. Ironically, that girl is a student at... EM Lyon, France and receives regular English lessons from teachers who left the UK a while ago.
The allusion to the basic handshake and "hello, good morning sir" is also quite telling.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnist...
Real question is, what can be done? I have just become a father and I don't want my little girl to grow up thinking that all is fair and easy when in reality this sort of soft education do not prepare you for the outside world's reality.
edited because I wasn't paying attention
Edited by J B L on Monday 22 February 14:15
maxrider said:
J B L said:
One of the HR lady here is Austrian, she felt really bad correcting British's students'
No, you weren't paying attention were you? 
even though I re-read the post I knew this would happen
bonsai said:
J B L said:
Real question is, what can be done? I have just become a father and I don't want my little girl to grow up thinking that all is fair and easy when in reality this sort of soft education do (sic) not prepare you for the outside world's reality.
Send her to a private school.It reminds me that our French company still insist on computer made CVs but hand written covering letters.
I appreciate that applicants could write the letter in Word first to correct the mistakes but those too lazy to bother learning properly first they certainly aren't going to write a letter twice are they?... Anyway, this application process generates some proper gems.
I appreciate that applicants could write the letter in Word first to correct the mistakes but those too lazy to bother learning properly first they certainly aren't going to write a letter twice are they?... Anyway, this application process generates some proper gems.
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