Business Education Needs to be More Inspiring

An Offsted report published this month describes “too much” of secondary school business education as “uninspiring”

Offsted based their report on the inspection of 118 secondary schools between 2004 and 2007.    The report shows that there are widely different methods used for teaching economics and business studies, and that these achieved widely differing results.

Characteristics of the weaker lessons included too much talk by teachers, closed questions and the overdependence on worksheets.  An recurring theme throughout the report was that there was too much emphasis on the descriptive work, and not enough on evaluation and analysis.

The report also raises the issue that students are sometimes disappointed by the lack of pratical aspects to the courses, and specifically mention not enough, if any, time spent with local employers and businesses.

We, at Fantasy Couriers,  believe that Economics and Business studies has the potential to be one of the most engaging and interesting methods of teaching students.  Business studies courses and activities give students the opportunity to take skills that they have learnt from other subjects and to apply them in a practical environment.

For example, algebra and equations make for some pretty dry maths lessons. Students are frequently unable to properly grap the principles behind algebra because its a concept.

But if you take that concept, and drop into an environment that the student can understand and internalise, then suddenly principles stop being concepts and start becoming tools.

For example get students to apply the concepts of algebra to work out a cost price for a product, or a break even sales level.  How many units do you need to sell at what price….., is a much better springboard for discussion, involvement and understanding than “if a+b=c and d+e=f , then….”

 

Finance and Business is the most common post school application of maths and numeracy for most people, with the exception obviously of those who develop the skills further into higher education, and the sciences.    So why wait until children leave school for them to discover this, lets teach them to apply their knowledge, and how to use it everyday in a practical way.

Discussions here centre on the use of Maths, but this could be equally applied to many other cirriculumn areas.  For example Art & Design, there are a small percentage of people that are able to use their Art & Design skills to build careers in Art, Architecture, Fashion and the literay world.  But a far larger percentage will use their Art & Design skills in a busines environment.  Designing websites, advertising & marketing materials, business documentation, manuals etc.

We at Fantasy Couriers believe that we should not think of Business Studies as a subject on the curriculum, it is instead a vehicle which can take the theoretical learnings of other subjects and show how these subjects have a real practical and modern relevance to everyday society, and our economy and world as a whole.

Business is the thing that keeps the world turning, and the current economic crisis has demonstrated clearly to everyone that business in America affects household happiness in the UK, and it is vital that we teach our young people to understand this.

A full version of the Offsted report can be found here.

UK Staff are some of the most productive in the world

There are many employers who think that their employees spend too much time on facebook, texting their mates and drinking coffee, however, contradictory to these opinions the Global Productivity Report published this week shows that UK workers are more productive than most other countries around the world.

Nicholas Crafts, Professor of Economics at Warwick University, believes that around 85% of an employees working time should be productive, that is contributing to the goals or objectives of the company.  Now although the UK didn’t acheive that level, it did have an unproductive time percentage of 26%, and was only one of two countries to increase productivity during the last year.

The results of the study were as follows, for unproductive time as a percentage of the working week;

• Australia – 22.9%
• UK – 26%
• France – 37.4%
• USA – 38.8%
• Brazil – 39.8%
• Germany – 40.2%
• South Africa – 41.8%

Causes of Unproductivity are belived to include poor management operating systems, poor frontline supervisions, communication problems, and a lack of workforce and management skills.

What is interesting here is that the responsibility for majority of these causes is held with management rather than with the workforce.  Consultants accross the board agree that to improve productivity you need to improve management, and that managers need to spend more time getting out there supervising, and giving feedback, and less time in meeting and administration.  In many companies employees are promoted because they have good techinical skills, because they are good at their job.  This does not necessarily indicate that they would be good at managing, and therefore training needs to be given to all employees being promoted into management and leadership positions to teach them the importance of managing and supervising properly.

And this is worse in the UK as traditional management structures put in lots of layers of middle management and line managers.

The survey also showed that the UK workforce was rated as the most motivated in the world, so if this could be combined with proper people management skills then UK workforce would be a power to be reckoned with.

UK Motoring Costs rising year on year

Motoring costs have increased by 30% since 2006.

On average, the private motorist has seen increases in the cost of motoring of over 30% since 2006.  The cost of motoring in 2008 is set to be 14% more expensive than in 2007, and 2007 was recorded as being 16.2% more expensive than 2006.

 

The main factors in these cost rises are Fuel, and Road Fund Tax, 2006 seeing a massive 32.5% increase in the cost of tax for the average driver.  However, all of the main costs, with the single exception being breakdown insurance, have increased by substantially more than inflation.

 

This is feeding through the industry and resulting in the lowest number of new car registrations in recent years.  Of those people who traditionally replace their car with a new car, research by uSwitch shows a quarter will this time not be looking to purchase a new car, and will be instead replacing with a secondhand vehicle.  And those who do still intend to buy a new car are intending on downsizing their budget by an estimated £3000 each, due to economic uncertainty.

 

Recent UK market information shows that instead of consumers buying new cars outright, they are looking at other financing alternatives, including contract hire.  But then the major companies underwriting contract hires are arms of the big banks, and recent activities have shown us all that banks do have a tendency to act with their own interests at the forefront.

 

The motor trade is facing crunch time, it is probably one of the major industries that will be required to look at every aspect of their workings, and change or die.  If consumers can’t get credit, they can’t buy cars, instead maybe the motor manufacturers will need to supply their own credit lines if they want to shift cars, but most of the major car manufacturers are struggling to obtain credit as it is.   The big 3 American car manufacturers, Ford, GM & Chrysler are looking for a government bailout.  And it will be interesting to see if the US government is forthcoming with such a proposal. 

 

What will this do to the price of cars on the forecourt?  Will the lack of demand push the retail prices down?  Or will the reduction in production result in long term higher car prices.  Many argue that new car retail prices have been overpriced for years.

 

So will the UK motorist be looking at 2009 seeing another rise in motoring costs?  The indications at present look like this is likely to be the case, with the long term fuel price set to rise, the green taxes pushing up the tolls, and the road tax on the larger vehicles, and the insurance industry continuing their perpetual 10% a year increase.

Teaching Kids that Money Matters

As we go into the recession, and every family is feeling the financial pinch, the government announces the launch of an £11.5m scheme to teach children how to manage their finances.

 

The Populus poll of 1,000 parents and children, aged seven to 15, at the end of August found

·         70% were discussing money more than at the same time last year. A third of families had opted not to take a holiday this year,

·         62% had stopped having takeaways and meals out.  

·         36% of parents had already switched to doing their weekly shopping at a value supermarket, with a further 19% planning to do so in the future.

·         Over half (56%) had stopped trips to the cinema and other entertainment-related trips.

 

These decisions are noticed by the children, and although 77% of parents said they would normally try to avoid exposing their children to money concerns, the present economic climate means that things that children have grown up taking for granted are becoming more of a luxury.

 

Almost a third of parents try to avoid the topic of money at home and a quarter of these said that was because childhood should be a carefree time.   However maybe involving children in these discussions helps them to understand the context of their parents decisions and choices, and that the “pester power” that marketing companies rely on for so many sales may be replaced an gradual awareness that money doesn’t grow on trees, and that choices must be made.

  

The My Money programme will be rolled out to primary and secondary school pupils, covering topics such as how money is used and debt. A survey commissioned to mark the launch suggests children are becoming more aware of the credit crunch as parents discuss finances more openly.   Chief executive of the Personal Finance Education Group (that Charity that will be implementing the My Money programme) Wendy van den Hende said: “The spending changes that many families are making can actually provide an opportunity to get conversations started at home and talk about practical ways of managing money. “

 

Older children should have some concept of money, and that financial decisions are not in fact carefree.  One of the discussions which has come out of the Credit Crunch is that the UK society is a spend now society, looking for that instant gratification from consumer goods and spending with little thought or regard as to whether or not that spending is affordable.  The current situation is a good one to grasp, and to show the children a good practise, and to put into place the sensibleness which we need to teach.