The Queens Speech: How it Affects Training
The Queen's Speech contained two bills that underline the Government‚s commitment to education and training: the Education and Skills Bill and Apprenticeships Draft Legislation
It is essential that more companies within process and manufacturing join with Proskills to respond to the challenge of providing appropriate training and development to the industry. Whilst many enlightened companies are addressing skills development effectively, and lots of „in-house‰ development activity goes unrecognised, as a whole we are failing to work together systematically to raise the skills of employees.
Government is showing signs that it is becoming more flexible, and is willing to move faster - these bills demonstrate that. But it is only by working together as industries that we can demonstrate the level of commitment that there is from employers to training to remain competitive, and really get Government support to make an impact on our sector.
We think we have the qualifications that employers want in the system, there is funding available that will at least contribute to the costs ˆ now we need more employers to come forward with their requirements!
Whilst the current low levels of formally recognised training is due to a range of complex factors, the overall result is clear - an under-skilled workforce that is not fulfilling its potential. As just one indicator of this, our research has shown that historically there has been poor take-up and completion of apprenticeships; for example, 750 apprentices in a Print Industry of 160,000; 900 apprentices in a Glass industry of 30,000; and 270 apprentices in a Furniture, Furnishings and Interiors industry of 149,000 is hardly preparing the workforce of the future.
To maintain long-term competitiveness in process and manufacturing - which is in many cases characterised by an ageing and predominantly white male workforce - we must bring new employees into the sector and ensure the transfer of essential skills.
Proskills has been working with employers to ensure that apprenticeships and other qualifications are designed to meet the industry needs and ensure excellent career opportunities for employees. We are pushing at the open door of unitization, to make qualifications in future more modular and more flexible to fit individual needs. We are also working to improve the availability of providers of training across the country.
The government's commitment to fund and support training as outlined by these bills - Education and Skills Bill and Apprenticeships Draft Legislation - and other initiatives such as Train to Gain in England is very welcome. However, it is the employers' commitment to raising the industry's skill level that will ultimately determine the quality and competitiveness of our workforce.
Recent research into manufacturing clearly demonstrates this ˆ out of the manufacturing businesses that fail, more than 70% of them were not training their workforces.
A review of the apprenticeship programme is currently under way and is due for completion in January 2008. Process and manufacturing has the opportunity to act now to show that it is willing and able to drive the programme of change for apprenticeships forward!
Terry Watts, Chief Executive Officer of Proskills UK, the employer-led Sector Skills Council for the Process and Manufacturing Sector
Comments