ARE SKILLS BEGINNING TO TAKE CENTRE STAGE?

A long-time supporter of a long-term plan for education, the?Rt Hon Robert Halfon MP,?has now been given the remit as?Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education - but also with a special focus on qualifications reviews in schools and colleges.

The spotlight on the need to rethink the focus on the breadth of educational pathways to support all learners has again been in the news this week,?Hear the words?of?Izzy Garbutt, Member of the UK Youth Parliament for Wigan and Leigh, who said:

'The quadratic formula was ingrained on my memory, ready to recall and apply to a question which may or may not come up in my maths question ... However there are a whole host of things that I have never been taught. ...The education system is supposedly created for young people. So please listen when we say it is failing us. We are picked up, put down and strapped into a never ending conveyor belt of academic testing. For years we have been calling for a curriculum for life. A curriculum that will see us with a greater understanding of the world around us. We are pleading for more emphasis on employability, communication skills and personal wellbeing.'

The need for this shift in focus is echoed by a recent report?The 2022 Youth Voice Census?spearheaded by?Youth Employment UK?with support from?Amazing Apprenticeships,?Edge Foundation,?Pearson, and?Skills Training UK. The report highlights many challenges, in particular that 'young people continue to fear that they do not have the adequate work experience, life skills or practical job hunting skills that they need to progress'.

This is echoed in the report by the?Edge Foundation,?Skills shortages in the UK economy, which found that 'employers are concerned that the significant gap between the skills employers require and skills available in the labour market threatens their success'.

We firmly believe that a long-term vision, strategy and plan for education will help address this issue. As?Joe Hallgarten, CEO of?the Centre for Education and Youth, recently indicated in a TES article,?'education is in urgent need of stable, longer-term policy development'.

Long term problems, rarely have short term fixes.?

We are delighted to have two new FED Ambassadors to help support and promote our work as a we welcome both?Olly Newton?and?Anthony MacKay.?

If you would like to become more involved in the work of the FED, please contact us at [email protected] and follow us?on?Twitter.