Training: does the country need more people with basic skills – or do we need more people with higher-level skills? That’s the debate that has re-surfaced following the publication of the government’s consultation document Skills for Sustainable Growth last Thursday.
The CBI and NIACE have welcomed the consultation. The British Chambers of Commerce say that while we need people with ‘basic employability skills’ we also need the leadership and management skills to help grow small business. The TUC makes the point that last year 10 million employees received no training of any kind.
The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) is keen that the focus is not all on basic skills, warning that an opportunity to drive economic growth could be missed.
It says: ‘Whilst CMI supports a renewed focus on the delivery of training to create a better society…too much attention on basic skills that produce high social returns may be at the expense of the higher-level skills that boost economic performance and create sustainable businesses.
‘Without focusing on higher-level skills, employers will be left with weak leaders who are ill-equipped to do their job, meaning that UK organisations will continue to flounder behind our international competitors.’
For my part I cannot understand how so many people can go through about 10 years of state education and emerge without basic skills – despite numerous ‘initiatives’ over the years to tackle this issue. Surely if they did not pick up the ‘3 Rs’ at school, they are unlikely to do so later, so shouldn’t the emphasis be on enhancing the skills of those people who have the greater potential because they already have at least basic skills – and probably a lot more?
www.bis.gov.uk
www.managers.org.uk
Visit the Fuse Learning website: www.fuselearning.co.uk
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