Upon reading the Skills and Post-16 Education Act, I was pleased by the government’s intent to put employers at the heart of the skills system through Local Skills Improvement plans. There has been a disconnect between education and industry for many years. The needs of industry have changed over the last 20 years and despite voicing those needs, education has often done its own thing and not delivered on what employers require.
Even now, the Department for Education is throwing so much weight behind T-Levels as a new technical qualification, but even those – like many technical qualifications before it - are too theoretical and don’t place enough emphasis on practical skills. The education system is still very rigid in its focus on academia, and we need to value technical competencies far more than we do currently if we are to make changes.
Taking that disconnect between education and industry into full consideration, I would like greater clarity on how Local Skills Improvement Plans are to be implemented properly. Education is not going to get its act together overnight and there needs to be a concrete plan for industry and education to come together and collaborate effectively, and the Act lacks such detail. What will be key for smooth dialogue and effective implementation of this is that we get the right people around the table all pulling in the same direction, but this could be a complex exercise when there are stakeholders who have such differing views.
Within further education colleges now, there is a shortage of quality tutors and quality courses to help upskill and deliver the workforce of the future that will be fit to work in the new green economy. These colleges are delivering outdated courses that are not technical enough, so they are only producing graduates that aren’t fully equipped to cope with the demands of the workplace. Yet, the existing funding model sees much of the finance for training soaked up by these institutions.
Some play the system by getting healthy course uptake and chasing the funding, so they dominate the marketplace but don’t deliver on the needs of industry. We need to look at a more bespoke and tailored form of training and the existing funding framework, which has become counter-intuitive, needs to change.
Where colleges and training providers do not deliver on the needs of industry, the government has spoken about accountability. While this is again a positive suggestion, more clarity is needed on what the accountability framework might look like. I have been into colleges and measured performance myself before, and although I don’t have the influence of the secretary of state for education, even he cannot simply enter a failing institution, click his fingers and solve all the problems overnight. The idea of the government or regulatory bodies having the power to crack down on those not delivering on employers’ needs is positive, but how that authority will be enforced is critical. The accountability system needs to be robust enough to initiate change where required.
Key Points:
• Placing employers at the heart of the system through Local Skills Improvement plans is positive but guaranteeing the smooth operation of these could be complex.
• There is a longstanding disconnect between industry and education.
• We need more quality tutors to teach proper, up-to-date, and technical courses that will deliver the workforce of the future.
• More clarity is needed on how a robust accountability framework will operate.
This article originally appeared in The Leaders Council’s special report on ‘The Impact of the Skills & Post-16 Education Act on the Construction, Engineering & Manufacturing sectors’, published on July 4, 2022. Read the full special report here.
Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash
