The news today that 400 youngsters will not now receive their expected places at University because someone cocked up did not come as a surprise. The only surprise is that this university did not seem to grasp how important these places were to the youngsters concerned. Their perceived acceptance meant that they could not follow alternative courses of action and so now they are left high and dry.
These blunders are occurring throughout our society as the backlash of the modern education system leaves us with young people who cannot carry out simple administrative tasks. In my later days with the Civil Service I was surrounded by young people who could not count without a calculator, could not spell, punctuate or even write legibly. That is generally all covered up by the use of computers but what cannot be covered up is their inability to pay attention to detail or their inability to check their input onto the database.
The consequence is that all over Britain the public are paying a huge price because the government computers are riddled with errors. Even my son recently has had a job put on hold because someone failed to complete forms accurately.
When I was training young people one of my favourite exercises was to place someone in a simulated receptionist position and then have other trainees walking in and giving him/her messages. If the person acting the role of receptionist did not respond correctly to any of the messages the scenario would drastically change.
These sessions invariably ended in chaos but it was a lesson well learned and it was good fun. Admin errors cause chaos and should be punished not tolerated in the good old blokey, jokey manner that they are perceieved today.
No comments:
Post a Comment