Gen Z students in Manchester learn 'soft skills' in UK-first trial

Thousands of gen Z students in Greater Manchester will learn "soft skills" such as empathy and time-management in a UK-first trial to teach "everyday but essential" tools.

- Josh Halliday

The programme will teach young people how to thrive in the workplace after employers said "digital natives" were too afraid to speak on the phone or do job interviews.

Prof Sandeep Ranote, a leading child psychiatrist, said those born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s had grown up in a very different global world that had left them lacking some key social skills.

"Young people are going into a world with huge challenges that certainly I didn't have," she said. "I call it the five Cs: they lived through Covid, climate change, cost-of-living, cyberspace and conflict."

Skills 4 Living was launched this week in Greater Manchester by the Unesco-partner non-profit Higher Health, which began the project six years ago in South Africa. This is the first expansion outside Africa.