DOWN WITH THE KIDS

As anon-profit launches a soft skills programme aimed at 16 to 25s, Ellie Muir asks if it’s fair to cast her generation as a set of workshy phone addicts requiring a complete overhaul

- Ellie Muir

A video of Morgan Freeman appears on my screen. What you see is not real,” he says in his deep Tennessee drawl from a darkened room. What if I were to tell you that I’m not even a human being?” It takes me a minute to adjust. Is Morgan doing OK? I notice he’s not blinking; his head’s not moving. Ah ha... it’s a deepfake.

I’m watching this clip as part of the UK’s first life-skills curriculum, which is being rolled out to thousands of Gen Z students in Greater Manchester. They will learn essential tools including empathy, time management, challenging prejudice, financial literacy, and spotting misinformation online.

The Unesco-partnered non-profit Higher Health has launched the nine-module programme to address a gap in soft skills among those aged 16 to 25, with plans for a nationwide expansion across different education providers such as sixth form colleges, young offender institutions, apprenticeships hubs, and graduate employment settings (it aims to reach 10,000 young people by September).

While I’m not actually one of the participants (I’ve been given access to the materials for this article), I am part of its target age group, and I can completely see the benefits. The course has been launched at a time when there is public concern about the future of my generation and how we will adapt to the workplace, especially since Gen Z is expected to make up about 27 per cent of the UK’s workforce this year.

Our negative reputation often precedes us: we’re represented in the media as a lazy, anxious and workshy generation, more snowflake than the millennials. What’s more, employers seem to be bracing themselves for our apparent ineptness: the accountancy firm Forvis Mazars recently launched a social skills course to teach Gen Z lessons on “picking up the phone”, which included simulations of client meetings.