London, March 16: Top jobs are increasingly out of the reach of the British students from poor backgrounds as they are pushed toward lower-rate qualifications at schools.
New findings show such students fail in the race for highly-skilled graduate positions as they are “mis-sold” GCSEs and A-levels in practical subjects.
Elizabeth Truss, the Conservative MP for South West Norfolk, said in her report for the CentreForum think tank that job markets are increasingly divided across poor-rich lines.
She said in the report that Britain is moving toward an “hour-glass economy” as advanced technology and automated manufacturing has taken the place of people skilled in such practical subjects as media studies in middle-rated jobs over the recent years.
That means such people who are mainly from poorer families are pushed down to take unskilled jobs as top positions are occupied by students mostly from rich households.
“The middle of the job market is being squeezed and in order to secure the growing number of professional, managerial and technical jobs, applicants require respected formal qualifications,” the study said.
“Low income students who don’t receive the ‘Morse code’ emanating from employers and top universities have been ‘mis-sold’ low quality GCSE and A-levels and find themselves on the outside track,” it added.
This comes as a research by the Russell Group earlier this year found job positions are more accessible to students with qualifications in traditional courses like law and medicine than those who have studied “softer” options including media studies, art and design, photography and business studies.
Figures also show a direct link between students’ more expensive studies at school level and their chance of being admitted to study traditional subjects.
According to other findings, private school pupils are one and a half times more likely to study math at A-levels than those in state schools.
Meanwhile, only one in ten students at state schools are offered foreign languages at GCSE while eight out 10 of their peers in private schools should cover the subject in their schedules as a mandatory material up to the age of 16.
——–Agencies