Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Economics, government & businessSkills shortagesOpinion

Changing tide of UK’s unskilled workforce

by Personnel Today 1 Mar 2005
by Personnel Today 1 Mar 2005

Everyone knows the refrain. The UK has the least skilled, least trained, least numerate and least literate workforce in Europe. Everything has been tried, from levies and Industrial Training Boards, to the recently abolished TECs – but resolutely, the problem remains.

But maybe things are changing. The government’s response to the Tomlinson report on the education and training of 14 to 19-year-olds – and the wider reaction – was very interesting. On the surface, the rhetoric was all about defending the ‘gold standard’ of GCSEs and A-levels, while making sure the hoi polloi could “read, write and add up”, in the infamous words of the CBI’s Digby Jones.

Of course, education minister Ruth Kelly made the ritualistic remarks about wanting to remove the stigma against vocational training – but, her critics insisted, by refusing to implement Tomlinson’s call for an overarching new diploma that would put the vocational and the academic on an equivalent footing, she wished away the means. Nothing had changed.

But dig a little deeper, and the story is subtly different. The government may not have implemented Tomlinson in full, but in adopting the notion of focusing vocational training into 14 learning lines, which culminate in diplomas that have the same worth as GCSEs and A-levels, it has come pretty close.

Moreover, the new system of building diplomas through blocks of credits intersects neatly with the way adults should be able to develop their learning certificates; using learning credits acquired when they were young but building on them with new credits to update their formal learning and diploma certificates. And with Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) playing an active role in devising the curricula, employers can be sure the skills will be economically useful.

In short, the UK is beginning to have the genuine components of a system of comprehensive life-long learning that works for both employers and employees – and it’s beginning to show. On the latest figures, 79% of 22-year-olds have acquired level 2 skills through either vocational or academic learning; and the government is confident that by 2010, the proportion will have risen to 85%, in line with the targets set in the so-called Lisbon agenda – one of the fastest improvements since the mid 1990s of any state within the EU. Moreover, UK employers spend more than 3.5% of wages costs on training – one of the highest figures in the EU.

Despite the educational establishment’s furious objections to Kelly’s temporising, what is proposed is still worthwhile. Together with the SSCs, the Qualification and Curriculum Authority’s emerging vocational qualification framework, high employer training and the remedial initiatives to boost numeracy and literacy, the reforms are actually working. The story on training could be about to change for the first time in a century.

By Will Hutton, chief executive, The Work Foundation


Avatar
Personnel Today

previous post
Royal Bank Of Scotland staff win 10% profit share bonus
next post
The proactive approach

You may also like

Pay all care workers a £10.50 hourly minimum...

30 Jun 2022

Staff shortages affecting business growth at three in...

29 Jun 2022

Graduate salaries rise sharply as search for talent...

27 Jun 2022

Young people need more guidance over ‘green jobs’

24 Jun 2022

Bias stopping STEM professionals returning after career break

23 Jun 2022

Inflation in May 2022 at 40-year high, as...

22 Jun 2022

Gatwick Airport cuts flights as staff shortages bite

17 Jun 2022

Workforce wellbeing and job design: Stephen Bevan talks...

17 Jun 2022

Job advertisements reach a new high amid labour...

17 Jun 2022

Construction blighted by skills shortage as sector steps...

16 Jun 2022
  • NSPCC revamps its learning strategy with child wellbeing at its heart PROMOTED | The NSPCC’s mission is to prevent abuse and neglect...Read more
  • Diversity versus inclusion: Why the difference matters PROMOTED | It’s possible for an environment to be diverse, but not inclusive...Read more
  • Five steps for organisations across the globe to become more skills-driven PROMOTED | The shift in the world of work has been felt across the globe...Read more
  • The future of workforce development PROMOTED | Northumbria University and partners share insight...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+