According to Prime Minister David Cameron, Great Britain must follow the example of Germany in combating the skilled labour shortage. "We need frankly to have a more Germanic approach to that skills deficit," Cameron declared in Redditch in the Midlands during a visit to the automotive supplier Lear Corporation. "You can't create an engineer overnight."
He said that measures needed to be taken to combat the decline of student numbers in the natural sciences. "This trend must be reversed and therefore we have to plan all the way through education." Cameron said that studying single sciences is more rigorous than combined sciences. "And we have to encourage top graduates to go into maths teaching so we inspire kids in school."
Cameron moreover complained that too many British colleges worried about political issues instead of preparing young people for the world of work - a significant and widespread shortcoming in his opinion. He said that colleges ought to take the initiative at last and meet with the companies. According to Cameron, they ought to find out what companies want and in which fields of expertise specialisation is required.
The Prime Minister warned that Britain risked falling behind other countries in the 'global race', if it failed to implement this change. Revised growth figures this week showed the British economy will shrink this year by 0.1 per cent, after previously being predicted to grow by 0.8 per cent. As a result of low growth and high borrowing, austerity cuts and tax rises will last another year until 2018, Chancellor George Osborne announced in his Autumn Statement.