ACCA response to OECD report on skills

Sarah Hathaway, head of ACCA UK said: “This is a timely report and a wake-up call for the UK. Businesses large and small are crying out for a more skilled work-force. They are paying more attention now to the specific types of capabilities they need from employees in order for the business and the wider economy to benefit. If young people in the UK are struggling with these core, essential skills – literacy and numeracy – something radical needs to be done to fill that skills gap.

There is clearly a role here for not just the education establishment, but the commercial sector, as well as professional bodies and government to establish a more joined up curriculum that not only gives the UK’s young people important, basic skills, but gives them a more work-relevant education that enables them to compete across the Europe, and also on a global stage.

“Many professional qualifications, including ACCA’s, require a high standard of literacy and numeracy skills as a starting point. Such capabilities form the core of the competency framework ACCA has mapped to its qualification. If young people don’t have them, they will struggle to be able to pursue a professional qualification. Such capabilities need to be a given rather than a bonus for today’s young people as they emerge in the workplace.”