New profile shows skills employers want

Press, 21 February 1987, Page 3

New profile shows skills employers want

Pupils leaving secondary schools may soon be able to present a new document, called a leaver’s profile to employers. It identifies the vocational skills a pupil has teamed. The profile is based on research by Mr Mike Reid, a teacher at Riccarton High School, t who worked with employers to find the skills they wanted from prospective schoolleavers.

The Employers’ Federation said that specific job-skills training should not be a function of secondary schools. Rather, prospective employees needed to have developed the ability to relate to other people, as well as leadership skills, literacy, numeracy, reasoning, and manual dexterity. Mr Reid found that those skills were taught in all school subjects, not just those subjects traditionally regarded as “useful.”

History students, for example, learned to weigh evidence and to reason. However, many olderstyle reports did not show that these skills were being taught, or offered

assessment of a pupil’s ability in them. “Secondary schools must report the good things they are doing for pupils,” Mr Reid said. "It is perfectly natural, but totally wrong, to assume that what is not reported is not being taught,” he said. In a research paper at the University of Canterbury in 1982, Mr Reid found a connection between skills involved in “non-vocational” subjects such as history and art and skills needed in the workplace. He applied the results to his own school and started a “leaver profile” reporting system to try to show the range of skills of every leaver. The new profile, used at Riccarton High School since 1983, identifies eight skills assessed by the teachers who take the appropriate subject. The eight areas are physical co-ordination, listening, speaking, reading, manual dexterity, writing, visual understanding expression, and use of number.

Each pupil is assessed across an ability range in each of the eight areas. In

the writing section, for example, each teacher must tick one description of ability from four choices: can debate a point of viewing in writing; can write a clear and accurate report; can write a simple account or letter; not coping. Skills specific to each subject are treated in the same way. History skills include interpreting chart or graph information. In art, vocational skills include the ability to work under pressure, and to make critical judgments about work quality.

The profile is an extension of the testimonial already offered to students, but it gives more information. A national award, such as Sixth Form Certificate, is seen as complementary to the profile.

A booklet outlining Mr Reid’s research and giving more information about the profiles, called “But Will it Get Me a Job?” has been sent to all secondary schools.

Profiles have been used in some other Christchurch schools, at least in individual subjects.