How can we create a system which encourages the development of essential skills throughout lifelong learning? We’ve been working with the Association of Colleges to think about this question.

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Background

Colleges are at the heart of local skills communities. They work hard to ensure that individuals have the essential, basic, and technical skills which will allow them to thrive in the local economy. Often this sees colleges working with Skills Builder Partnership to develop their essential skills teaching. You can see more about the work some of our colleges are doing here.

The Skills for Jobs White Paper and the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill set out a new future for the way that colleges in England collaborate with key stakeholders to serve their local economy. There’s a demand to create a more connected and collaborative college system which supports more people to develop, understand, and communicate their essential skills. This might be through new measures such as Local Skills Improvement Plans and the Strategic Development Fund, or through existing practice being shared widely.

In order to start to unpick some of the best existing practices and to share thoughts on net steps, the Association of Colleges and Skills Builder held a series of roundtables considering existing best practice and how it could be evolved. The events were attended by key stakeholders including those in further education, government departments, and employer organisations. We’ve summarised some of the key recommendations below.

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We agreed that we must create a common language and framework for all sectors, and recommended the Skills Builder Framework as the national standard.

Using a common language and framework allows for transferability and collaboration, clarity, and progress. This also makes the system more transparent and equitable. Employers spoke of the challenge around young people not understanding a job specification which uses language that differs to the language used in college.

The Skills Builder approach works. Education Partnership North East found that 94% of students said that, through using Skills Builder resources, they developed skills for their future. The Partnership also reported that 96% of employer partners were impressed by students from the college who participated in work experience (an increase of 28% compared to when essential skills were not explicitly taught).

Skills policies are made nationally but enacted locally. Colleges spoke about how they collaborated at a local level, often through the Local Enterprise Partnership. This re-enforces the need for a common language and framework which can then be implemented locally. It also means that clear, inclusive, local structures are required.

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We agreed that all sectors are responsible for collaborating and developing essential skills.

Collaboration between employers and colleges must go two-ways. Colleges are linchpins of their community, who have a valuable understanding of the community and labour market. Newcastle College spoke about supporting employers to develop work experience projects for students to actively develop and reflect on their essential skills. Other colleges spoke about the consultative approach they had taken with employers, with employers offering their expertise and colleges supporting employers to think about how to develop their staff’s skills.

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We agreed that employers must collaborate alongside colleges.

Employees rarely work for only one employer in their lifetime. Employers need to align and share sector messages. Without this shared message, there is a danger that the largest employers’ voices are the only ones heard and that young people receive mixed messages about the skills needed for a particular sector.

One college shared how they had supported employers to speak with one voice and understand the skills that young people had by equipping students with self-assessment scores through the platform Skills Builder Benchmark. When hosting a sector event, they briefed all employers on the essential skills and how to read a Benchmark report. Both employers and students benefited from a shared language and a single message from employers.

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More must be done to ensure everyone has the opportunity to develop their essential skills.

There were several harder to reach groups whose essential skills needs must be recognised and addressed.  Employees on zero-hour contracts and day release students to college programmes don’t always have the same opportunities to develop skills as those in more secure work. Refugees and learners with special education needs were also identified as a group who often lacked the same opportunities to showcase their skills to employers.

Some colleges such as Middlesbrough College and New College Durham have worked to equip students with a language of essential skills and evidence for employers around their essential skills. We agreed that a more consistent method was needed to support those who historically have not had the same opportunities to develop and showcase their essential skills.

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The needs in policy

We’ve also considered the changes we want to see from the Government. We propose that:

• The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) and the Department for Education jointly produce a National Strategy for Skills which can be incorporated into the upcoming school bill.
• Essential skills are adopted as part of the DWP’s “Restart” scheme, with the Skills Builder Universal Framework used for measuring high quality employability.
• Youth Hubs deliver employability training using the Universal Framework as a tool to develop and measure essential skills.
• The National Careers Service incorporates the Skills Builder Universal Framework and associated resources in the Skills Toolkit – especially the “professional development” and “personal growth and wellbeing” modules.

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Do our findings and recommendations ring true with your experience and thinking? Get in touch – we’d love to hear your thoughts…

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