My name is Erin, and I am a year 10 from CHS South.
I have been doing work experience here at Gorse Hill Studios and I would like to talk about World Youth Skills day, on the 15th of July 2023. I’m hoping that this year shows a difference for the opportunities of young people in recent years. I would like to share my opinion on the importance of education and equipping the youth with skills of employment, so they are ready to transition to the next stage of their lives and actively engage in different communities.
Unemployment of the youth is rapidly rising each day, with young people being almost three times more likely be unemployed than adults. Furthermore, it was estimated that in 2022 the amount of unemployed youths sat at around 73 million, which is 6 million above the pre-pandemic level in 2019. This is a huge problem, especially with the impact of inflation and prices being a lot higher than they were before. This could cause the next generation of adults to struggle financially, whether it is getting essentials, adequate housing, or just things they enjoy that they do not have access to.
A significant factor which contributes to the rise of unemployment could be disruption to or lack of education for the youth. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, months of education were disrupted, causing a lack of understanding for further skills later on. For example, due to missing 6 months of year 7 learning and around 2-3 months of year 8 learning, there are still a few things I do not understand or that I had to self-teach. In my case, I’m lucky that I have still had decent education even with the impact of Covid, but many people are not as fortunate. Existing systems are failing to address the learning needs of many young people, and surveys of learning outcomes and skills show that a large number of youths have low levels of achievement in basic literacy and numeracy. This goes the same for employment and job skills, which could lead to a larger increase of unemployment if there is no change. In 2020, a study showed that the share of youth not in employment, education or training rose to 23.3%, a level not seen in at least 15 years.
Furthermore, even the youth who do manage to get job opportunities are exposed to low quality and underpaid jobs. This may be to do with lack of education of the youth, lack of employment skills, lack of opportunities in general, or a mix of all three. This is part of the reason work experience and high-quality education is so important as it provides young people with crucial skills as they move on from schoolwork to wider responsibilities.
Work experience at Gorse Hill Studios has provided me with a broader outlook on different job opportunities, as well as teaching me and improving my skills such as: communication, working with others, ability to follow instructions, and problem solving. For example, my social skills were not the best they could be before, but working at GHS has improved them vastly. It has also opened my mind to a range of job opportunities that I had not tried before or thought I would dislike.
I enjoyed the sessions here where I worked with 7–11-year-olds, which made me think more about working with kids in the future when I probably would not have imagined it previously. There were also tasks that would prepare me for working in the future and would provide me with experience that would be helpful to me later in life. For example, I learnt how to use music software which would be useful to me as I have an interest in music. Additionally, I had never tried anything to do with music technology before, as I am more educated in instruments such as guitar and bass guitar, but nevertheless I found producing beats quite fun and it would also be helpful to me if I wanted to go down the music route that I am passionate about, as producing is important for all aspects of music in my opinion.
Although work experience is a fantastic opportunity for young people to learn employment skills which are essential for getting jobs in the future, there are still gaps in education and sufficient opportunities for them to kickstart their futures. This is why World Youth Skills Day is so important, and this generation of people deserve proper change. Furthermore, I believe that the ideas of the youth are revolutionary in comparison to previous generations, especially with societal ideologies and the desire for change and acceptance among everyone in our community. It has been wonderful and thank you for reading what I had to say.