The report reveals that the nation is lagging well behind its competitors in Europe and most of the OECD on key measures including: literacy and numeracy, learning and development, and digital skills.
Key findings show that England and Northern Ireland together rank in the bottom four OECD countries for literacy and numeracy among 16–24-year-olds, and employers train less, and invest less in skills, than most other EU countries. |
The UK is sleepwalking into a low-value, low-skills economy post-Brexit and CIPD is urging the Government to make additional skills funding available to tackle low skills in the workplace.
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The report reviews skills policy and offers thoughts and recommendations on how the UK can improve its performance.
The analysis, which forms part of the CIPD’s formal response to the Government’s Industrial Strategy Green Paper, highlights the failings in the UK’s skills system and offers thoughts and recommendations on how we can improve our performance.
One of the purposes of this report is to persuade policymakers to give a higher priority to developing a range of high-quality vocational routes to employment as complementary to a university education.
We need both systems to work effectively if we are to meet the huge changes in the content and organisation of work driven by new technologies, deal with increasingly complex organisational structures, and ensure progression in the workplace for as many people as possible.
That means looking at how people can acquire and develop skills throughout their working lives, and not just in the early years.
Overall, the recommendations focus on making significant progress in a limited number of areas by building on what we have and recognising that meaningful change will be gradual and requires stability and consistency.
The thoughts and recommendations are grouped around six themes.
- Strength and stability in the system
- Improving basic/core skills
- Increasing the quality of vocational pathways
- Building capacity at a local and workplace level
- Promoting learning across the life course
- Access to quality information, advice and guidance.
Download the full report: Making the UK’s skills system world class >
Skills for growth: supplement
A supplement featuring a number of CIPD key messages around youth unemployment and skills development
The journey into employment for young people is more difficult than ever and employers have a responsibility to help address the issue – not least because it is crucial for the development of the future workforce.
This supplement, produced by Mediaplanet for the City A.M. newspaper, features a number of CIPD key messages around youth unemployment and skills development, including the important role of business mentors in helping young people to find work.
Download the supplement: Skills for growth – Supplement >