School leavers use of IT.

[laserblazer]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/vdunet/2008...e-6315470.html

I'd have said that 39% using PP and 65% Excel is pretty high considering most of them are probably carp at it.

[Dos_Box]

What have you got against carp?

[enjay]

65% doesn't strike me as all that low a number, especially when you factor in the jobs which blatantly don't require use of IT at all (bus driver, etc).

Also, how soon after leaving school were these students surveyed? For example, spreadsheets are typically used for budget calculation, but I wouldn't ask some 16-yr-old school leaver to handle my company's budgets, however good their Excel skills are!

To me, this smacks a bit of an article where the eye-catching shock-factor headline can first, and the "research" was then done to support it (but then it is Monday morning, and I'm always more cynical at this time!)

[j17sparky]

Theres no way in hell i believe them figures. 65% using speadsheets, what for? As said above you only really use them for calculating money and you aint going to give some 16yr old that responsibility.

Im 24, so not exactly long since i left school, and out of *every* single person i know around my age i am the *only* one who has ever used excel or powerpoint at work. That article is complete BS if you ask me

[tech_guy]

Why do people always have to pick on fish?

[laserblazer]

What have you got against carp?

Sorry, another forum I use has a carp content filter that converts carp to carp. I've got into the habit of typing carp when I really mean carp. It struggles with cufk.

[Andrew_C]

Although 88 per cent of the respondents were taught how to use spreadsheet software at school, only 65 per cent used it once employed.

I don't believe 65% either.

Most of the employers' time will be spent teaching these kids to use a saw and a hammer, or a burger-flipping spatula. Those doing desk jobs will need to be taught that "i comes before e, except after c", and that the first letter in a sentence is always capitalised; as is "I".

There will be little time for using advanced spreadsheet techniques.

[dhicks]

Why do people always have to pick on fish?

Probably just for the halibut.

--
David Hicks

[Edu-IT]

This thread is becoming like that Nationwide (?) advert! I'm not bothered about it though, I've got bigger fish to fry.