A vocational education plan to fix the UK’s skills crisis?

We thought it interesting to share with you an article recently appeared in the “Finacial Times”. It seems that after Brexit the UK is orienting itself towards more vocational education and training. Is the EU going to follow that path too?

“The UK faces a skill crisis after more than a decade of stagnation in productivity and real wages.

According to educators, chronic underinvestment by successive governments is one of the main causes, and official statistics show that there is a shortage of suitable candidates, filling a quarter of jobs. That is difficult. Employers’ organization CBI estimates that by 2030, nine out of ten workers will need to learn new skills for their jobs at a cost of £ 13 billion annually.

The Ministry of Education announced last week plans to remedy the slump in Britain. The new Skills for Jobs white paper promises to put employers at the “center” of vocational education, and its central role is to create almost all technical courses and design programs that meet local skill needs. is.

Secretary of Education Gavin Williamson called the policy a “blueprint for the future.” The business has generally agreed. Matthew Fell, CBI’s Policy Director, said the technical courses will be arranged “in step with industry needs” to give learners “confidence” that new skills will lead to work.

However, while continuing education institutions are welcoming new approaches to government skills, there is a long way to go to address the scale of the county’s lack of skills.

Critics warn that simply prioritizing employers cannot undo decades of negligence in continuing education. Without better support for students and businesses, many can remain inaccessible to continuing education, putting an unmanageable burden on employers who want to help.

Tom Bewick, Chief Executive Officer of the Awarding Machinery Alliance, said: “It’s not much enough to help achieve a more critical and universalist approach to lifelong learning.”

Financing is one of the main issues. Data from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show the scale of the problem. Spending on non-apprentice adult education has fallen substantially by two-thirds since 2003. Over the last decade of austerity, college funding has fallen by 12%, but the number of adults receiving continuing education has plummeted from 4.4 million to 1.5 million since 2004.

Some of those losses have been recovered. The £ 2.5 billion National Skills Fund, announced last year, has funded many of the white paper’s projects, and the government has promised to “consult” on a multi-year funding regime.

However, in the middle of the one-year spending round, there is still a lot of uncertainty about funding continuing education as the government’s finances are constrained by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Unless this involves investment, we can only implement fine-tuning and small-scale initiatives,” said Fiona Aldridge, Head of Policy for the Learning and Work Institute. “Resources need to be there to match ambitions.”

Sue Pember, policy director at Holex, a leading adult education provider, is concerned that this approach is “too focused on the employer” and helps those who need to help access to education. You may not have enough resources left.

Williamson has spoken out about his hopes for a more professional “German” education system, but ignored aspects such as employee representation on the governing board that makes the German system work. She added. “Don’t just choose what you like.”

Educators welcomed the government’s plan for a “lifetime skill guarantee” to facilitate learning after the age of 16. This includes free qualifications equivalent to Level A or efforts to qualify all adults who do not have Level 3 qualifications.

Changes in funding rules will give students access to loans for more advanced technology courses, as they would for college degrees, and the government will test new types of short-term courses focused on specific skills. I will carry it out.

However, student financial access will not be available until 2025, and so far the government has only committed to discussions on whether it will cover living expenses. Critics warn that plans to offer loans rather than grants can discourage students from a low-income background.

Bewick also said he was concerned that Level 3 course qualifications were “too narrow”. For example, he said, if you had an A level geographically decades ago, newly unemployed people would be barred from free training. “We need to see a much wider range of credentials and flexible credentials that will be available at all levels.”

The union said there was more work to be done to meet the needs of the students. Trades Union Congress Secretary Francis O’Grady said the “employer-led” approach gave people “too little control over learning and skills.”

But by putting employers first, the government also expects more from the business, while providing limited details about the support available. The white paper proposes that the Chamber of Commerce and the University set up a hub to withdraw from the £ 65m funding pool and develop local skills.

Companies are also being told to expand on-the-job training, including providing 45 days of work experience to 16-year-olds with new vocational T-level qualifications.