GPSJ WINTER 2023 2024 LATEST - Flipbook - Page 40
GPSJ
EDUCATION & LEARNING
Expert view: What’s Behind the NEET
Numbers?
By Louise Livingston
The latest NEET statistics from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) report paints a disconcerting
picture of UK Education and Skills in 2023 for young people. For those aged 16 to 24, over 1 in 10
are NEET (not engaged in education, employment, or training).
path, seeking the release of human
potentialities.” “Education for Life” she recognised that education must
prepare children to engage fully in
the life they are living today in order
to create the one they will live in the
future, not the one that their parents
or grandparents lived.
But the picture gets bleaker, with the
ONS’s latest report also showing
that 7% of UK adults aged 16 to
64 had no qualifications in 2022,
and overall, 35% of adults in Great
Britain were dissatisfied with the
education system in September
2023, uncovering the urgent need to
re-evaluate our education system.
We need more creativity
The current education system,
mainly looks at academic subjects
and may not suitably prepare young
people for the challenges in life
today. There is no longer a need
to memorise facts as we have
smartphones at our fingertips.
For young people, it is much more
relevant for education to help them
learn how to organise information,
think creatively and discriminate
relevant from irrelevant. But, in
a system that teaches a fixed
curriculum, these opportunities
are difficult to find. Currently
students are required students to
listen, memorise and sit a test to
evidence what they can remember,
giving little credit for ideas and
knowledge outside of the current
curriculum. But, to thrive in today’s
workplace, young people must
40
have the skills to communicate and
work collaboratively and creatively
with colleagues. But with limited
opportunities to develop these skills
at school, how can young people
become creative and collaborative
thinkers?
The workplace of today also requires
employees who are adaptable, and
these are character traits that need
to be worked on and developed
early in life. This is nurtured by an
educational approach that offers
more choice and supports children
to learn from their mistakes, using
them as prompts for further learning.
But how will children learn to be
flexible when all that they have
experienced is that they will receive
low marks if they don’t follow the
rules to the letter? Children need
some freedom to choose their own
activities, often starting with what
they enjoy and, as they experience
success, their confidence will grow
alongside their thirst to contribute
and express ideas.
Maria Montessori, the visionary
educational pioneer recognised
this when she wrote: “Education
must no longer be mostly imparting
knowledge, but must take a new
When children are guided by a
teacher trained in the Montessori
approach, they observe children’s
interests and capacities as a means
to support their development.
The Montessori teacher prepares
an educational environment for a
mixed-age group with a wide range
of open-ended, hands-on activities
that provide opportunities for children
to choose tasks appropriate to their
stage of development. Because
activities are so targeted to each
child’s individual needs and interests,
children are motivated and engaged
and soon become able to focus
their attention on the job at hand,
persevere when challenges arise
and look for new solutions. In short,
they become self-disciplined,
creative, and self-starters – exactly
what is needed for the jobs that right
now don’t even exist.
These soft skills are particularly
nurtured by the Montessori approach
educational neuroscientists call
“executive function”. Recent
research links executive function
to academic and social skills
and a myriad of other positive life
outcomes. Today’s workplace is
crying out for more emphasis on
developing and maximising these
mental skills, enabling children to
navigate complex situations later in
life. Today’s employers don’t care
so much about what employees
know - they value how they think,
communicate and collaborate.
GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SECTOR JOURNAL WINTER 2023/2024
Love of learning
The world today is complex and as
we navigate the world, our education
system needs to evolve help young
people develop the resilience,
collaborative and social skills
needed to make their way in the
world. Encouraging young people
to nurture their own development
and to take control of their own
education will empower them further
explore their own interests. This will
foster a love for continuous learning
which is grounded and to deliver an
education based on experience from
the past but fit for their future lives.
Louise Livingston has over
30 years of experience
in education, an MSc in
Educational Neuroscience,
and is undertaking a PhD in
Educational Neuroscience.
Louise is Head of Training at
the Maria Montessori Institute
www.mariamontessori.org,
which offers Montessori
teacher training and short
courses at the UK’s only AMI
training centre and authentic
Montessori education for
children aged from 2½ years at
its London school.