Jeremy Corbyn’s Call To Change Attitudes To Vocational Training Needs To Include Adult Learners
With Jeremy Corbyn criticising old-fashioned ‘grammar school mentalities’ about vocational education, Rebecca Garrod-Waters, CEO of Ufi is calling for greater parity between academic and vocational learning and for the education system to be extended to include adults, not just young people:
If the role of education is to prepare people for the workplace, then we need to ensure that our education system delivers the kind of vocational training young adults need.
We know that many employers are finding that the gap between the skills they need, and the skills potential employees have, is widening.
To fill that gap we not only need to give vocational training greater parity, but we need to ensure that this kind of education doesn’t stop when a young person hits 16 or 18.
The way we work is changing. It is the role of businesses and our education system to adapt and help ensure adults have the skills they need to embrace changing work habits.
The barriers to tackling vocational training are historical and political.
But as we look to a future where the UK can compete strongly with other countries on the global stage, we have to consider what we’re doing to ensure our businesses and workforce can succeed. Many of us will find the way we work reshaped and revalued by new technology.
But this new technology can be harnessed to deliver vocational training to young people and adults in a flexible, more cost effective and quicker way than many traditional training methods.
We not only need to address the old-fashioned attitudes to vocational training for the young, but we need to view this kind of training as a continuum, that can shift and adapt as our businesses respond to changes in the global economy, and new ways of working.
Rebecca Garrod-Waters, CEO of Ufi
Ufi is a charitable trust that supports vocational training by funding digital solutions to help improve vocational skills in the UK’s workforce.
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