Ministers halt plans to teach 'life-skills'

Ministers have shelved plans to teach life skills to teenagers despite warnings from employers that too many school-leavers are poorly prepared for work.

Schools minister Jim Knight stopped moves to embed 'personal, learning and thinking skills' within all GCSEs and A-levels.

The CBI warned that many youngsters were not equipped for working life and called on schools to teach teenagers vital social skills.

Ministers wanted skills such as communication, personal presentation, creative thinking, teamwork and reliability to be embedded across the school curriculum.

But after advice from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Mr Knight said he did not want to force these skills to sit 'unnaturally' within GCSEs.

In a letter to the QCA, the minister said: ' Given the other changes in train at A-level and GCSE, I would not want to make further changes to A-level or GCSE specifications to embed these skills unnaturally in qualifications.'

The original plan for teaching children these personal, learning and thinking skills first appeared in a Government White Paper published last year.

The White Paper stressed that young people need 'a range of learning and social skills'.

A spokesman for the CBI said: 'If it is not possible in practice to test these abilities in every single subject then the schools system must, at minimum, ensure students' education as a whole provides much more opportunity to develop these essential life skills.'

A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills said: 'It was decided that personal learning and thinking skills would not be suitable for GCSEs.'