The head of BT has branded the British education system a “disgrace” after claiming the company has been forced to reject thousands of job applications for poor spelling and grammar. Sir Mike Rake said the telecoms giant binned almost a quarter of all applications made for a new apprenticeship scheme because candidates appeared “completely illiterate”.
Many young people now fail to have the basic skills needed to get by in the workplace, he said.
The comments represent the latest in a series of attacks on the education system by Britain’s leading businessmen.
Sir Terry Leahy, outgoing chief executive of Tesco, has criticised the “woefully low” standards achieved by many schoolchildren and Sir Stuart Rose, head of Marks & Spencer, said many young people were “not fit for work”.
Sir Mike said 26,000 applications were made for 170 places on BT’s apprenticeship programme starting this autumn, but 6,000 were not worthy of consideration.
“They were unable to complete the form because they could not spell, put it together or read properly – completely illiterate,” he said.
“It’s a disgrace. The politicians have a huge amount to answer for over the past 50 or 60 years.”
Sir Mike, whose company employs more than 90,000 people, also attacked the “obsession” with pushing growing numbers of school leavers towards university, leaving many with “a big debt and no job”.
“Too many people are going into the wrong courses,” he told The Sunday Times. “Many universities are just desperate to fill places and get their grants.”
He added: “Many of our higher-level apprentices have chosen apprenticeships instead of going to university. A lot of them make that choice even if they would have been first in their family to go to university.
“A lot of their friends are finding themselves coming out of university or college with a degree that may not be very useful from a practical point of view, with a big debt and no job.
“The realisation that an apprenticeship could be a better option than university for many people reminded us starkly of this huge literacy problem.
“We have people who want [apprenticeships] but don’t have the basic skills to do them. It’s really disturbing.”
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