Young people are overconfident slackers who don’t have a clue about the real world, new research has revealed.
The joint study by the Financial Skills Partnership and Career Academies UK focuses in particular on youths’ ignorance about the growing number of school-leaver apprenticeship options being offered by large organisations.
It found that young people “believed they had a high level of awareness of apprenticeships, but further questioning revealed their knowledge was inaccurate and shallow”.
The findings also suggested that young people were unthinkingly choosing university in favour of other options, such as unemployment.
Various top law firms, including Kennedys, DWF, and Pinsent Masons, have launched apprenticeships over the last couple of years. The programmes see school-leavers qualify as lawyers via the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEX) route.
Views about CILEX qualification vary – often provoking fierce debate among members of the legal profession, as I outlined in this piece for Guardian Law.
Want to find out if your knowledge about legal careers beats your average moron teen? Take the Legal Cheek test.
True or false?
1. Students can qualify as lawyers via the school leaver CILEX route aged as young as 11 provided they have completed primary school with an exemplary attendance record.
2. Those who have obtained poor grades at university can cheer themselves up by purchasing the title of “barrister”.
3. Many law firms pay students handsomely to do work experience.
4. It’s common for graduates to join law firms, make millions of pounds during their 20s, then retire on their 30th birthday.
5. Silk’s Martha Costello QC is among the contenders to replace Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers as president of the Supreme Court.
The answers are on the Legal Cheek Facebook page.
