Week 6: 5th - 11th June (Activities: 3.2)
The previous section started to unpack the complex relationships between issues of societal, political and organisational concern. These combine when the issue of skills development is discussed, particularly in the context of developing and enhancing the knowledge economy (Powell and Snellman, 2004). These concerns relate to many areas that have connections to HRD strategy.
Because of the wide variance in national contexts for skills development, this section explores UK policy and practice before providing a guided activity in which you will have the opportunity to explore these issues across an international context of interest to you personally.
In the UK, figures show that the number of people with no qualifications has dramatically fallen since the early 1990s, so that across all age groups one third of working people had a higher education qualification by 2012/13, compared with one fifth in 1992/93 (JRF, 2013). However, the UK is repeatedly said to be experiencing a skills shortage, with the CIPD (2014b) highlighting concerns about mismatches between the qualifications held and those in demand by organisations. The CIPD suggests that ‘the UK still finds itself languishing in the various international league tables of skill and qualification achievement’ (CIPD, 2014b, p. 11). That is to say, the CIPD highlights issues of both the supply and demand sides of the skills equation. A key debate here concerns who is responsible for addressing these issues. Is it the responsibility of the government? Of organisations? Of professional bodies or other stakeholders?
A recent report by the City & Guilds Group (2014) highlights concerns about policy and funding for skills development in the UK. The City & Guilds Group was established in 1878 and is now a leading specialist in vocational skills development. The report points out that:
Since 1981, there have been 61 Secretaries of State with responsibility for skills policy, each with their own agenda for change. Consider the impact that each and every one of these changes has had, and how they have affected those involved in the skills and employment sector: training providers, employers, awarding bodies and, most crucially, those individuals who are seeking to develop their skills in the first place.
The report concludes with this rather damning image (Figure 3.3):
The City & Guilds Group report focuses on the issues related to policy and practice in relation to three groups: young people, unemployed people and employed people. As an initiative that is particularly targeted at young people, apprenticeships are considered in more detail later in this unit.
Young people
Concern with skills and young people (often in the UK defined as those between the ages of 16 and 24) often relates to issues of transference between different stages of education and of eventual employment. In general there appears to be a broad consensus that the UK government is responsible for this stage of skills development.
Within the UK there have been recent changes to the school leaving age (which has been extended to 18 within England but remains at 16 in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales) alongside ongoing changes to academic and vocational qualification routes and major revisions to the funding of university degrees. The City & Guilds Group report concludes that ‘The history of policy in this area demonstrates an unhappy compromise between two conflicting aims: training people to work in a specific occupation, and ensuring that individuals’ training is broad enough so that their occupational choices are not limited’ (2014, p. 10).
Unemployed people
The policy emphasis here has been on ensuring that those who are unemployed are able to obtain the necessary skills to find a job. However, as the report highlights, there have been many issues with the various UK government schemes set up to achieve this aim. There has been particular concern about the effectiveness of private providers that are paid to deliver employability skills. Such concerns are also situated within a much broader debate about how benefit provision impacts the motivation to find paid work.
Employed people
In contrast to the groups discussed above, the development of the employed workforce might be largely considered to be the responsibility of individual organisations but the City & Guilds Group report recognises the role of other stakeholders (such as professional organisations) in ensuring that there is both sufficient incentive and coordination particularly across occupational groups. In contrast, Harrison (2009) considers the issues from an employer’s perspective and highlights the following issues that impact the extent to which organisations are motivated to invest in skills development:
- uncertainty of return on investment
- lack of voice or influence on government strategy
- government focus on accredited learning has not historically reflected skills that matter to organisations.
It is notable that the CIPD (2014b) suggests that the issue of skills can only be addressed within the context of a broader UK industrial policy rather than as a separate area of concern.
International perspectives on learning and development
The above discussion has focused specifically on the UK to illustrate the range of issues at stake. However, in the following activity we encourage you to explore international issues more broadly.
Activity 3.2: Exploring macro policy drivers
