New Prime Minister – Opportunity to Drive Home the Importance of Skills and Training

As a new Prime Minister arrives in Downing Street we wait to see if she will change the Minsters within education and business.  Many people in the sector will be concerned that it will be another chance to revisit policy changes but at 3aaa we are seeing this period as a real opportunity to drive home the importance of skills and training.  Apprenticeships will remain at the centre of any policy development in our sector and we believe the profile that Apprenticeships, Traineeships and skills in general gets now can only be good for the sector.  So we think the Levy will go ahead and at 3aaa we will continue to talk to existing apprenticeship employers and new employers about the benefit of training their own staff.

This is being seen as even more important with talk of less movement of people and the need for organisations like the NHS to train their own.  We have had some good discussions with local NHS organisations who know that they need to train more of their own skilled workforce and not depend on bringing in people who already have the skills.  This is a challenge for lots of businesses and we have offered high level project management skills to a number of organisations public and private to think through how they can use the Apprenticeship programme to solve their skills issues.

Clearly we have short term solutions but this is also a long term issue for the UK and it has to start in schools.  So we were pleased to see this was recognised in the recent Government Skills Plan which reflects the deliberations of the Sainsbury Report.  We agree with the principles set out in these documents but policy makers need to talk to those organisations working with the current systems to develop programmes in schools that give young people more choices.  We recruit around 5,000 young people every year in their first career opportunity and we still find that many of them are not encouraged to take what we believe to be the best option for them.  A step on the career ladder with high quality training to support them.  Any reforms to the schools process must be based on providing real choices for young people so we wouldn’t want to see the ‘vocational routes’ set out in the documents to be a barrier to choices.

So many of the changes we have seen recently including the decision to change our relationship with Europe, the change of Ministers will create even more opportunities to get skills and training including Apprenticeships to the top of the agenda of government and employers.  That is certainly the sort of conversation  we are having with employers.

We create and deliver over 100 life changing opportunities each week for young people through their participation in our apprenticeship programmes and our aim is for this to grow progressively over the next few years.”

Stewart Segal, Director of Strategy, 3AAA

You’ll now find a 3aaa Academy in BEDFORD, BIRMINGHAM, BLACKBURN, BRADFORD, BRIGHTON, BRISTOL, CAMBRIDGE, CHELMSFORD, CROYDON, DERBY, EXETER, GLOUCESTER, GUILDFORD, HULL, LEEDS, LEICESTER, LIVERPOOL, LONDON, MAIDSTONE, MANCHESTER, MIDDLESBROUGH, MILTON KEYNES, NEWCASTLE, NORTHAMPTON, NORWICH, NOTTINGHAM, OXFORD, PETERBOROUGH, READING, ROMFORD, SHEFFIELD, SOUTHAMPTON, STOKE, SWINDON, TAMWORTH, WARWICK, WATFORD, WOLVERHAMPTON, WORCESTER and YORK.

If you are an Employer looking to transform your business, email: [email protected] or a young person looking to take your first steps into an exciting career in IT, Web & Social Media, Digital Marketing, Accountancy, Business Administration or Financial Services, email: [email protected].