The skills challenge

Andy Powell

Chief Executive
Edge, formerly Chief Executive of NTO National Council

In the Foreword to the first ever edition of The Training Manager’s Yearbook in 2000, Andy Powell, the then Chief Executive of NTO National Council wrote about the challenge of improving post-16 skills and learning.

In the Foreword to the first ever edition of The Training Manager’s Yearbook in 2000, Andy Powell, the then Chief Executive of NTO National Council wrote about the challenge of improving post-16 skills and learning.

The launch of The Training Manager’s Yearbook comes at an exciting time in the world of training, with the new millennium heralding a promising new era for post-16 learning and skills. The Learning to Succeed white paper poses a real opportunity for employers in each sector to drive the learning and skills agenda. The new National Learning and Skills Council and its local network promise to provide a more coherent, integrated system, offering access to learning and skills for all. For all of us involved in training and job-related education, the challenge is to work together and put the proposals into practice. A strong employer voice will be the benchmark of whether the new system is a success.

We cannot afford to fail. Every training manager knows only too well that UK competitiveness is hampered by a lack of key skills. Despite employers investing £10 billion in workforce development each year, too many resources are being channelled into remedial training for young people. One-fifth of 20-year olds and seven million adults lack basic skills. We are well behind our competitors in the proportion of our population with at least a basic qualification. Barely half our young people achieve a Level 3 qualification, compared to 75% in Germany.

In addition to this, one third of employees say they have never been offered training. Management development is patchy. Individuals often find it difficult to get the right advice and access appropriate training to improve their own learning and performance.
But the situation is set to change, and training managers need to be at the vanguard of that change. The government is heeding calls from employer-led National Training Organisations and others, for an integrated, customer-driven training system. We live in an age where it is no longer possible to divorce education and training from competitiveness. Seamless integration between education and training is fundamental to raising competitiveness.

All skills must involve learning, and the acquisition of learning must increasingly contain skills. Therefore, the proposal to establish a Learning and Skills Council for all post-16 learning is right, and one we should work together to support.

What difference will it make to training managers? A lot, potentially, particularly through the pivotal role employers will play in the new arrangements through their National Training Organisations. The network of 70 NTOs are the new government-recognised voice of employers on learning and skills. Representing employers in virtually every UK industry and occupational sector, NTOs develop bespoke occupational standards and training frameworks for their industries. Their role is to ensure that education and training is designed to deliver the skills employers need. NTOs will contribute greatly to the work of the National Learning and Skills Council, putting employers in the driving seat, and leading the nation’s drive for world-class skills.

The unique strength of NTOs is their ability to bring together employers to identify the skill needs of their industry and ways of meeting those needs. In a growing NTO programme called Skills Foresight, a clear and coherent picture of national and regional skills demand is being developed. Learning and skills targets arising from this work will be the basis of action plans for each industry.

Training in small and medium-sized businesses, particularly, may benefit from the new arrangements at local and regional levels if the various agencies work together effectively. Partnerships are vital. There is an unprecedented opportunity for the NTO employer voice to influence the development of local Learning and Skills Councils, the Small Business Service and the Regional Development Agencies.

We must build a more flexible system for learning and skills based on demand. That means bringing more coherence to the national framework of qualifications, encouraging the flexible use of occupational standards, and enabling learning to take place in bite-size chunks through the greater use of NVQ units and ‘baskets’ of units for multi-skilling and other purposes.

This flexibility will help to underscore full NVQ achievement as the universal standard of occupational competence, and the Modern Apprenticeship and National Traineeship as flagship training frameworks. There are still important issues to address, as highlighted in the first report of the Training Standards Council. These include a need for improvement in NVQ assessment and verification practices, and the delivery and assessment of Key Skills.

NTOs have a central role to play in making the new system for learning and skills responsive to the needs of your organisation and your industry. NTOs are your organisations. To be influential and successful on your behalf, they need your participation and support, so I urge you to involve yourself in the activities of your NTO.

Finally may I wish this new publication well. Its launch reflects the rising profile of lifelong learning and skills in every sector of the economy, and recognises the vitally important role of training managers within every organisation – large and small.

Andy is currently Chief Executive of Edge, an educational foundation (www.edge.co.uk)