Sadly many of the courses are offered by institutions looking for bums on seats, rather than responding to the demands of employers. Having said as much many of the institutions will tell you that they are responding to demand from those wanting to attend the courses rather than their own needs or those of business. This is an area in which business does need to do more, i.e. providing better data against which institutions can develop courses. In terms of the second point - some research does need to be done in this area to better understand what the situation actually is. I have no doubt it will be subtly different to what we all expected and will probably find most of these individuals happily employed.

Any learning is good and that we should be aspiring to keep everyone learning throughout their lifetime. In that respect Media Studies is a good course, however the question is whether these courses do equip one with the skills needed to be effective in the workplace - theoretical subjects such as mathematics clearly do as evidenced by past success in this area. That may well be the issue - many of these are still new courses and have yet to prove themselves or do so sufficiently for most of us to be comfortable that they are doing the job. Clearly though there is a disconnect between what skills businesses are looking for and the skills that many young people have, which is leading to skills shortages such as Food Technologists. Certainly much of this is driven by what is on offer at institutions - who will tell you they are responding to demand and cannot fill courses despite their being demand from employers. It is fair to say on this one that I think better information and a more concerted effort by all parties to provide a better picture for young people is long overdue. Where I certainly do differ with you, is that businesses do train their staff. However what the majority of retailers don't do is use qualifications for this purpose. The main reasons are the perceived bureaucracy involved, cost, inflexibility and in many cases the courses are not considered fit for purpose. Invariably most of this upskilling takes place using internal courses and training programmes - admittedly their are many who are guilty of doing the bare minimum, if at all. There is no doubt that business can do more, however the educational institutions also need to engage with employers to better understand future requirements in order for us to plan ahead and ensure that we don't end up with as you say

• lots of people wishing to be trainee plumbers but no courses available
• lots of people on media courses and no jobs for them to go to
• lots of specialist jobs and no one to fill them

There is a role for government here as well, giving a clearer indication of where economic policy is taking us. This will certainly help to plan for the future and to give everyone a better understanding of what jobs may be needed - information that will help schools, careers practitioners and industry in preparing young people for a career. Finally in terms of the abacus and so on - interesting point. Do we need to teach young people to understand basic skills such as arithmetic in order for them to use a calculator or should we simply show them how. Maybe that is the difference between a Mathematics ors Sociology degree and a Media Studies course - I would suggest we need more of the former if we are to maintain the UK as a leading economy although we will always need the latter.