4 minute read
HOW CAN WE SKILL THE FUTURE GENERATION?
Where will tomorrow’s skilled employees come from? Who’s o ering the training they’ll need in the post-pandemic economy?
By Ian Mean Business West Gloucestershire director and Board member of GFirst LEP
Many of the jobs that primary school children will do have not yet been invented – and that’s only 10-15 years away.
Are we preparing them to be agile, enterprising, digitally confident and competent?
This is a key question when we consider the complexities of skilling the future generation.
These are not my words but those of a wise educational operator – Steve West, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West of England in Bristol and President of Universities UK.
I asked him what were his top sector job tips for our future generation of young people?
He said health and social care; digital in all its formats – cyber and creative; GreenTechengineering and technology, including science and the whole service industry sector – retail and hotels.
“The universities have got to be front and centre, he said. “If we are going to get anywhere in levelling-up, we must step up and work with industry, business and schools”.
But many companies don’t invest enough in training.
“That’s a big problem”, says Steve. “The bigger companies do it because they are building their future and looking at their recruitment pipeline.
“That is going to be increasingly important to all organisations.”
Matt Burgess, principal of Gloucestershire College, tells me that in Gloucestershire something like 95 per cent of companies were found to be spending less than £5,000 annually on training.
Too often we lambast the government over apprenticeships and training when companies should bear the brunt of criticism.
After all, they have a responsibility to their employees and their development.
Clarkson Evans, the succesful newhome electrical contractor, which has its headquarters at Staverton near Gloucester, is a stellar example of a company with a business model developed through apprentices.
Around 80 per cent of the workforce in management roles requiring technical and electrical expertise joined as apprentices. The company currently has an amazing 250 apprentices out of a staff of 850.
Chief Executive Lindsey Young said: “We are developing a workforce with the right set of values – our values.
“I think emotional intelligence is quite important in terms of skills. It’s not just what a school can deliver for technical skills it is also about how to thrive in the workplace. I believe that too many schools are not giving young people the foresight on jobs for the future to create real aspiration.”
She added: “Some of the old stuff taught in the school’s curriculum over the last 50 years might have to go to make way to teach new skills.”
Mike Holliday, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire manager for the Training Provider Network said if that’s the case, we need to better match college courses with jobs.
He said: “In the past, colleges might say this is our offer and students would have to fit in with that, however the emphasis is changing to a more student-led approach, but I don’t think we are there fully.”
Over the next year, Mike says he will deliver the ASK (Apprenticeship/ School/Knowledge) programme to 10,000 students and parents across Swindon and Wiltshire.
“You hear the pennies dropping around the room when you start talking about apprenticeship opportunities,” he said.
“We often hear companies saying they can’t get the recruits. But if employers work with schools they can create those links.”
Colleges are currently enjoying something of a boom in apprenticeships with companies taking on more young people to combat staff shortages.
Local Enterprise Partnerships across the UK have been developing their skills strategies, and over the last few months, I have been involved in the Gloucestershire Skills Strategy which has just been published. It is a far-reaching piece of work that illustrates just how complex and challenging the issue is.
As a former apprentice journalist who left school at 16, I believe that we must work hard to create early aspirations for our young people – and their parents – with the help of local businesses. It makes so much sense, and companies must realise that growing their own people pays dividends.
FAUN Zoeller UK boss pioneers mentoring group for next generation of business talent
The boss of Redditch-based waste management company FAUN Zoeller UK has set up Power Up, a group of local businesspeople and educationalists prepared to devote time to mentoring children and young people.
Simon Hyde said: “Young people in education are not showing enough interest in the business world. When I was young I had two brilliant mentors, without whom I wouldn’t be in the job I do today.”
One member of Power Up, Mark Ridings is founder and managing director of tooling company Lasercomb Group. He said: “There are fundamental barriers we need to break down. School leavers are pressed hard to go to university. They are therefore avoiding the trades and engineering. Our top priorities are to open doors and engage with as many schools as we can.”
Louise Laxton heads up the careers advice and counsellor department at Trinity High School and Sixth Form Centre in Redditch.
She said: “Business has not helped itself by giving contact with education a low priority. Power Up will help inspire pupils who lack motivation because they don’t know where to start.”
Oxfordshire needs a highly-skilled, adaptable workforce
Last year, Oxfordshire updated its Local Skills Plan. In its foreword, Adrian Lockwood, Chair of the county’s Skills Board, said: “Oxfordshire is the UK’s engine for innovation: research and development is driving the creation of new, dynamic businesses, hungry to grow and scale up. We are at the forefront in transformative technologies and sectors such as fusion technology, autonomous vehicles and space. To achieve this, we will continue to need a highly skilled, adaptable workforce and to ensure that they, and future generations, have the skills that businesses need and value.”
However, he acknowledged that while job growth in the county had centred on knowledge-intensive professional, technician and senior leadership roles over the last 15 years, employers report shortages of degree level (Level 4+) candidates for occupations such as programmers and software developers and those with sector-specific specialist skills. There are also, as in all other regions, longstanding labour shortages in health and social care.
With employers reporting a shortage of high-level technical skills, an increased take-up of the new T-Level, high (degree) level vocational and technical courses and apprenticeships which are adapted and aligned to emerging technologies and employer needs, could do much to address this.
Three enabling skills: AI and big data; business and digital and soft skills will be required by the majority of sectors as Oxfordshire’s economy recovers and grows.
There are more than 40,000 university graduates each year in Oxford and the county is keen to ensure that rather than leaving the county for London and the South East, they understand the employment opportunities and quality of life offered by the county.
