The Leitch Review of Skills is now out after a lengthy wait, and it has a fair amount to say - much of it unlikely to go heavily reported as it isn't too controversial and the report is a meaty 154 pages long.
The basic premise is this - in global comparisons, we're pretty average on the skills level of the workforce, which is fine if we want a pretty average economy. If we want a better than average economy - and we do - we're going to tackle some skills issues at basic, intermediate and high end skills - which means getting more people to pass GCSEs or basic vocational training, more people to get degrees and other vocational skills, and get employers better at offering training in general.
Some entertaining stuff early on, where Leitch describes the Sector Skills Councils as having 'conflicting objectives, the lack of a clear remit, deficiencies in performance management, and ineffective leadership' - although he later calls on them to have a key role in driving up skills demands from industry, particularly for management skills, and in SMEs.
Buried in there are some interesting statements about university education.
One key target is that he wants 40 per cent of the adult population to have a degree-level qualification by 2020. This is a much more cunning way of iterating the 50 per cent participation target, and may be even more ambitious - currently, 29 per cent of the UK working population has a degree, and by 2020, population trends suggest fewer young people than currently, so in order to drive that adult participation figure up, we may need more than 50 per cent of 18-30 year olds getting HE qualifications. Wonder if anyone will pick up on that? Interestingly, he also states that he wants an 'increased focus on Level 5 and above skills' - postgraduate qualifications for those of us who are not fluent in NVQ-ese.
Another way to put this is, by 2020, we need 5.5 million adults in the UK to have degree-level qualifications if we want a world class workforce.
This rise is to be partly led by industry skill demand, and Leitch calls on greater private investment in the university system, suggesting co-funding of university research chairs by industry and government as a possibility.
For all those who think we don't need 40 per cent of the population to have degrees, Leitch points out that we've upped the proportion from 19 per cent to 29 per cent between 1994 and the present day but that, for example, the US and Canada have both worked harder at this than we have, and they both already have 40 per cent of the population educated to degree level. In fact, Leitch reckons we might need 45 per cent of the population from 19 to retirement to get degree level skills by 2020, in order to stay competitive.
All this is before I even get onto the postgrad bits (a target for which is 'not considered to be appropriate at this stage'.)
Technorati tags: higher education, universities, labour market information, LMI, Leitch Report
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Nice to hear that someone is interested in NVQ 5 type qualifications. Shame that England can't yet support those considering such options with free careers guidance in comparison with Scotland and Wales which give free guidance to all.
Well, if you're in a university in England, then many of the careers services now have dedicated advisers for NVQ 5 qualifications. But outside universities, yes, it's a very different matter. Privately, a number of professionals I have spoken to on the subject feel nervous about advising on NVQ 5 because they themselves don't possess the qualification. It doesn't help, of course, that NVQ 5 is a very broad church in terms of the qualifications covered.
UK Grad can help on PhDs, but part of the problem for Masters and Diploma qualifications is that, TDA apart for teaching, there isn't anyone with an overall remit for the qualifications and so there's nobody to provide centralised specialist advice.
Post a Comment