Department for Children, Schools and Families
The Department for Education and Skills - Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners

The Department for Education and Skills - Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Departmental Strategy


Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners


Chapter 7: Adult Skills

Goal: Employers able to recruit people with the right skills, and individualsable to get the training and skills they need for employment anddevelopment

1. Our world is changing. Where there used to be the notion of a 'job for life', there is now the certainty that for most people, careers will range widely and the ability to change and be flexible will make for success. We need to equip people to be 'employable for life'. Skills are at the heart of this, enabling people to take on new roles, and adapt to new circumstances.

2. The world is changing for businesses as well. As a nation, we will not achieve the standards of living and the quality of public services that we all want if we compete on the basis of low value added goods and services. To improve our productivity, we must close the skills gap. If businesses are to move up the value chain, become more profitable, and pay higher wages, they must be able to recruit people with the skills and qualifications to succeed in a knowledge-intensive, technology-rich, globally competitive environment.

3. More than any other sector of education and training, raising investment in adult skills is a shared endeavour. Better skills benefit us all - individuals, employers and the nation. We all need to contribute to raising our national game, investing time and resources in training to tackle long-standing skills gaps.

4. As the reforms set out in earlier chapters take effect, the skills of young people moving into the workforce will improve dramatically. But we cannot just wait for this new generation and ignore those already in the workforce. We need to help adults improve their skills, and employers train the workforces they need for success now.

5. Colleges and other training providers are central to achieving these goals. Many already do an excellent job of meeting employer and learner needs, and take pride in offering responsive, innovative, flexible training. Ourobjective is to help colleges and training providers achieve a new place in public esteem, celebrated as powerful and effective drivers of economic success and individual fulfilment.

6. More adults are developing their basic skills than ever before. Since 2001 around 550,000 adults have improved their literacy, numeracy and language skills and achieved a qualification.

7. There are a million more adults in the workforce qualified to Level 2 or higher than in 1999, and there were over half a million more adults enrolled in further education in 2002-03 than in 1998-99.

8. The number of adults studying for their first Level 2 qualification (equivalent to five good GCSEs) rose by 11 percent between 1997 and2003.

9. Achievement is also rising, with the proportion of adult students in FE completing their courses successfully rising from 56percent in 2000 to 68 percent in 2003. Success rates for adults at Level2 increased by almost 4 percent in the last year.

Issues and Challenges

10. But it is clear from the analysis in Chapter 1 that this is one of the areas in which we have furthest to go.

11. Our offer to adults and employers is:

Offer to individuals and employers

What this means in practice

12. We published last July the National Skills Strategy for tackling these long-standing problems. Our ambition is to ensure that employers have the right skills to support the success of their businesses, and individuals have the skills they need to be both employable and personally fulfilled. An alliance of Government Departments, key agencies, and organisations representing employers and unions has come together to implement the Skills Strategy.

Employers at the heart of our strategy

13. We gave the commitment in the Skills Strategy that employers will be at the heart of our approach. They hold the key to breaking the vicious circle whereby weak supply of skills holds back the potential of firms to grow, and invest in better skills. If we can make sure that training for adults fits employers' needs, we can be sure it will deliver something - better prospects of decently-paid, secure employment - that adult learners want.

14. Employers have a right to expect that training programmes will be up to date with industry's need and that colleges and training providers will be flexible and responsive. But they also have a responsibility to articulate their current and future skill requirements clearly, so that colleges and training providers have a clear understanding of what they should be aiming for.

15. The new Sector Skills Councils are the key to this. They enable employers in each major sector of the economy, both public and private, to identify the skills they need to drive productivity and business success, and to help shape training supply to meet those needs. We are making excellent progress in establishing Sector Skills Councils. 18 are now in place, with more in the pipeline. By the end of this year, they will cover 80 percent of the workforce. Each Sector Skills Council will agree with employers a Sector Skills Agreement, based on analysis of the drivers ofproductivity to achieve international competitiveness, and the skills that will be required to get there. They will set out the ways in which employers will work together, and with training providers, in order to boost investment in the supply of skills they need.

Case Study

Skillset

Skillset was one of the first Trailblazer Sector Skills Councils. It covers the broadcast, film, video, interactive media and photo imaging sector. It is also one ofthe first four Sector Skills Councils to develop a sector skills agreement.

As part of their agreement Skillset are developing a comprehensive strategy to drive world class skills across the film industry. They are developing proposals for a voluntary training levy to support collective investment in skills for film, andco-regulation with Ofcom on skills development in broadcasting.

16. As well as this industry-wide strategic role, we want to make sure that individual employers can be in the lead in developing training that suits their individual business. OurEmployer Training Pilots, which were designed to give employers more choice and control over training, have been successful and popular.

17. The pilots are currently covering one-third of the country. We will draw on the principles of these pilots, and their evalution, as we decide the form of any national programme tosupport employer training, and as, from 2006-07, mainstream funds for adult training increasingly reflect this way of working. Employers will have more choice in deciding what forms of training they want, how it should be delivered, who they want to deliver it, and the overall package of training that will best meet their needs (including, for example, apprenticeships as well as basic skills training).

18. We are developing Apprenticeships for adults, working with Sector Skills Councils. The Learning and Skills Council expects to run trials later this year. Meanwhile, we have raised the age cap so that all those who begin an Apprenticeship programme before they are 25 can finish it.

Employer Training Pilots

The pilots provided a package of support, including:

Progress during the first year of the pilots has been promising, with over 10,000 employers and 60,000 learners participating, and a high proportion from small and medium sized firms (traditionally less likely to engage in training). The average completion rate is expected to bearound 70 percent, which is high compared to other forms of work-based training.

Both employers and learners have expressed high levels of satisfaction. Employers are attracted to the flexibly delivered training and learners to the opportunity to obtain skills to do their jobbetter and to gain a qualification.

The pilots have spurred more colleges and training providers to deliver training on employers' premises, at a time and in a manner suited to shift patterns. They have also encouraged tailoring of training to meet exactly the skills gaps identified.

Trade Unions playing a growing role

19. One of the most significant developments of recent years has been the new role of unions and their Union Learning Representatives in promoting learning and skills in the workplace. This recognises that investing in training and qualifications brings powerful shared benefits for both employees and employers - helping employees ensure they have the skills to secure decently paid, secure jobs, and helping employers raise productivity and develop their businesses. Wehave provided unions with financial support under the Union Learning Fund since 1998, and there are currently around 7,000 Union Learning Representatives active across all areas of the country. Backed by new statutory rights, introduced in April 2003, there could be as many as 22,000 in place by 2010, helping over 250,000 workers a year with their training and development needs.

Further Education tuned to business andlearner needs - for personalisation andchoice

20. For adults, personalisation and choice mean being able to choose training from a wider range of quality assured providers; being able to choose from a range of programmes and qualifications which are well designed and delivered to develop the skills each sector needs; being able to build up credits of achievement over time to a full qualification; and being able to train at times, in ways and inplaces that suit their working lives.

21. Employers should be able to choose between training suppliers, work with business support services that can integrate training needs within the wider development of the company, and get training delivered in a way that meets operational demands.

22. To make sure that Further Education colleges and other post-16 providers are able to respond to this demand, and adapt themselves to business needs, weare:

23. We want to support employers who want to invest, on a partnership basis, in developing new customised centres for training. We are exploring a Further Education Academy modelwhich would allow employers to act assponsors (on the same principle as Academies in the schools sector).

Access to learning for all

24. Lifelong learning is at the heart of our agenda. By this we mean learning across thewhole of life - not just post-19 or post-16 learning, but the development of learning communities from the cradle to the grave. Skills and learning are not just about economic goals. They are also about the pleasure of learning for its own sake, the dignity of self-improvement and the achievement of personal potential.

25. We will continue to safeguard a varied range of learning opportunities for personal fulfilment, community development and active citizenship. Research shows that such learning has a positive impact in many different ways; on the individual and their sense of purpose, motivation, health and well being; on their family and on their children's learning; and on society and the individual's involvement in the wider community. They help people build the confidence to come back into learning, offering the first step to qualifications for those who want them.

26. We will continue to build up successful services such as the learndirect helpline, which helps find people the courses they want, by telephone or on the internet. These services are not only a convenience - theyhelp to change the shape of our system by giving both more power and more responsibility to the learner themselves, to shape and drive their own learning. It is important that for adults, we have a system which encourages this sense of shared responsibility for learning, with individuals incontrol of their own learning destiny.

27. We will also continue to develop ICT based learning for adults. Last year nearly half a million adults took learndirect courses in ICT, basic literacy and numeracy and business and management skills. Increasingly, employers are seeing the benefit of making learndirect and other courses available to employees in the workplace and this is a trend that we continue to encourage.

28. We are clear, though, that it is right to focus the investment of public funds on adults with few or no skills - because this both tackles a primary cause of social exclusion, and helps employers to get the flow of skills they need.

Adult Basic Skills

29. We will continue our successful drive toimprove adults' literacy, numeracy and language skills. We are on track to meet our target of 750,000 adults with better basic skills by 2004, and 1.5 million by 2007. Between April 2001 and July 2004, a projected 2.3million learners will have taken up an estimated 4.6 million learning opportunities.

30. English as a Second or Other Language training has expanded rapidly in recent years, to meet the language and literacy needs of those who do not have English as their first language. We will embed literacy and numeracy skills into other qualifications, sothat basic skills are developed alongside more job-specific training and recognised through national qualifications.

31. Over the next three years, we plan to provide over 3 million learning opportunities foradult basic skills. These will be delivered in ways that suit learners' circumstances, such as the workplace, learndirect centres, mobile training centres, local football clubs, and through learning 'shops' in shopping areas. We also have a major programme working with offenders in prison and in the community.

32. As part of this, we will increase the focus on family learning, working with the LSC to jointly fund courses based in Children's Centres and Extended Schools. Some of these programmes will integrate basic skills into parenting and family learning activities, giving parents rounded help which covers both educational and social support for children.

A new entitlement to Level 2 skills

33. Building on the support we are giving to basic skills, we now need to go further and make sure that every adult can get to a full Level 2 qualification (the equivalent of five good GCSEs) - the level that opens doors togood employment and builds a foundation for higher-level technical and associate professional skills.

34. In the Skills Strategy, we announced a newentitlement to any adult who has not yet reached that skills platform to free tuition to help them get there. Learners will be able to enrol on publicly funded learning programmes leading to a full Level 2 qualification. They will be offered by colleges and training providers, as well as in the workplace. With the Learning and Skills Council, wewill be seeking to expand the supply of training, focussed on those programmes andqualifications which willbest support employability skills across thedifferent sectorsof the economy.

35. We are introducing the entitlement in the North East and South East regions from September this year, as part of the phased roll out to implement the Skills Strategy. In the light of progress in the trials, we aim to roll out the entitlement nationally from 2005-06.

Financial support for adult learning

36. We are backing up this entitlement with the offer of a new Adult Learning Grant of up to £30 per week for any adult studying full time for their first full Level 2 qualification.

37. We will also offer these grants to young adults studying for their first qualification at technician, skilled craft or associate professional level (Level 3). We have been piloting the grants from September 2003 in 10areas, and will extend that to cover the North East and South East regions from this September, as part of the Skills Strategy trials.

38. We will shortly be consulting on new proposals for developing financial support for adult learners outside higher education, to make it more coherent and easy to navigate for the learner. The proposals include developing a pilot single application form for the various different types of learner support, and looking at how the Career Development Loans scheme can be developed to help more low skilled adults.

A New Deal for Skills

39. As well as working with employers, it is important that we offer good skills training to adults who are not in work, or who have a succession of short-term, low-paid jobs where there is little training and development.

40. We are developing a NewDeal for Skills with the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions. This will mean that benefitclaimants get better advice and support and are helped to get the skills needed for sustainable, productive employment. The keyelements will include a new skills coachingservice giving better advice and encouragement for individuals needing to update their skills, and a 'Skills Passport' - recording skills gained - to support the move from welfare to sustainable employment.

Changing the system to deliver our reforms

41. To make a reality of these reforms, we need both to drive quality up dramatically, and to increase the responsiveness of the system. The key lies in contestability - rewarding and expanding successful colleges and training providers, while making sure that we are notfunding any providers as of right, but extending the power of employers to choosethe type of training they want, and encouraging new provision in the system tokeep it dynamic.

More choice and control for employers

42. We need a fundamental shift, so that the supply of training and skills is directly shaped by the needs of employers. That is at the heart of our work to implement the Skills Strategy.

43. We are making good progress in building the infrastructure to do this, through Sector Skills Councils and Sector Skills Agreements. We are working closely with the Regional Development Agencies, to ensure a close link between training supply and the skills needed to drive regional economic development, integrated with business support services. Through the Employer Training Pilots we are putting employers in a position to choose the training they want, and how they want it delivered.

44. One of the key principles of the Employer Training Pilots is that employers can choose which college or training provider they want to use. Brokers help them to identify and source the best training supply to meet their needs. We want to apply that principle more widely, so that the LSC can fund those colleges and training providers that are best placed to supply the training employers really want.

Opening up training to new providers

45. These changes will reward those colleges and providers which are already demonstrating the commitment and ability to work in this way, and encourage the entry into the LSC-funded sector of a wider range of providers. At the same time, our quality improvement reforms will mean that we cease funding those providers that are not offering good quality. And the Strategic Area Reviews being conducted now by the LSC in each local area will assess where there are gaps which new providers could help fill. All this will create a stronger and more dynamic way to bring good new providers into the system, while cutting out poor quality.

Better, more competitive colleges

46. We have set out the first robust programme for quality improvement in further education through our Success for All strategy, which has been widely welcomed. This is designed to support and reward those many colleges and training providers which do an excellent job for their learners and employers, while taking vigorous action to turn round, close or merge poorly performing colleges and providers. Wenow have 21 fewer colleges than in 2001. The shake up has been even greater amongst private training providers - 870 fewer are engaged in publicly-funded training - and this has been a key factor behind the dramatic increase in the number of trainees achieving qualifications.

47. We will accelerate quality improvement by:

Building workforce capacity

48. As part of the work on quality improvement, we will transform the skills of the further education workforce. Lifelong Learning UK, the new Sector Skills Council, will drive forward the workforce development strategy for the sector to achieve our long term goal of a fully qualifiedworkforce. Through targets for teacher qualifications agreed with colleges we are making good progress against our Success for All target of 90 percent full time and 60 percent part time teachers qualified or working towards a qualification by 2006. In 2003, we had reached 79 percent full time and 54 percent part time qualified.

49. We will also do more to develop leaders. As in other sectors of education, our reform programme for adult skills and training is critically dependent on the quality of the leadership in colleges and training providers. At its best, the quality of college leadership is inspirational. The newly-established Centre for Excellence in Leadership will provide leading edge training and development for leaders and managers across the sector. It will help to attract, retain and develop current and future leaders and prepare them for the challenge of our new agenda.

Managing the change

50. The Skills Strategy set out a vision for transforming our national investment in skills with the aim of achieving a new balance of responsibilities and funding between government, employers and learners. Government has and will continue to have responsibility to secure and pay for high quality initial education and training for young people. But Government cannot and should not fund all the skills investment needed to sustain a competitive economy.

51. The contribution that employers and learners make towards the cost of training is not as high as might be reasonably expected when we look at other countries. Many employers willingly invest large sums of money to train their staff. Over 25 percent of the UK workforce now work in organisations committed to, or recognised as achieving, theInvestors in People standard. But many employers are not confident that colleges will necessarily deliver the forms of training they want, in the way they want it.

52. So, as we set out in the Skills Strategy, thismeans reviewing the national funding framework. While we need to ensure that we protect those in greatest need, we plan to incentivise colleges to increase and diversify their income through contributions from employers and learners who gain the most benefit and who can afford it. We will be working with the sector to develop this new approach.

53. The LSC's planning arrangements will become a single, integrated annual process with a much lighter burden on colleges and training providers. Coupled with the tighter incentives for quality, this will encourage colleges to focus on their strengths. In parallel, there will be more frequent, but lighter touch inspections based on self-assessment. At the same time, we will take forward the agenda for simplification, reduction of bureaucracy and efficiency improvement that is set out in Sir Andrew Foster's first Annual Report of the Bureaucracy Review Group for the sector.

53. There is a substantial challenge in developing a more demand-led system and creating a network of colleges and other providers where quality is driven by providers themselves and is consistently at the standard now achieved by the best. With the LSC, and building on Success for All, we will set up a review to examine what these changes mean for the future organisation, governance and management of colleges.

Flexible qualifications framework

54. Finally, we will reshape the whole qualifications framework for adults, so that programmes allow individuals and their employers to take learning in small units and to combine units in ways that best meet the individual's and the employer's needs. Aframework of credits and units will also enable more formal credit to be given to training provided by employers, and thus encourage greater joint financing of learning. Our aim is to have a unit-based credit framework for lifelong learning in place in England by 2010.

Timetable for Change

Taken together, our reforms mean that:

Now, in 2004:

By 2008:

Our Long Term Aim

20OECD (2003), Education at a Glance.

 

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