Question

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the 2015 Skills: Outlook report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which reported that United Kingdom graduates leave university with lower numeracy skills than their peers in any other country except the United States, and of its implications for young people entering the labour market; and what plans they have to address this issue.

The Government is committed to driving up standards at all levels of education to help improve employability and the OECD’s report underlines the need for our rigorous new curriculum that focuses on the basics, so that children from a young age have a strong foundation on which to build. We would want higher education institutions to continue to play their part in helping to address the weak basic skills exhibited by a small proportion of graduates. However, surveys of employers currently show very high levels of satisfaction with the skills of UK graduates.