How could Literacy and Numeracy levels impact Levelling up? FE Soundbite Edition 650 (which is 12.5 years of FE Soundbite!)

Welcome to FE Soundbite… this is edition 650, which is 12.5 years of FE Soundbite.. wow, that is massive. My second eldest kid finished her GCSEs (and school) this week, but I think FE Soundbite reaching the 12.5 years milestone makes me feel even older!… Next year is 2023… and this means FE News will be 20 years old… arghhh I am ancient!

If you haven’t come across FE Soundbite before, this is the FE News weekly roundup of the news, interesting thought leadership and articles that I think are worth highlighting from the week… and I have been doing this for 12.5 years! Wow

Right so now I have totally realised that I am ancient… here are some of the cool things that happened this week on FE News:

Interesting reports released this week: From Green Skills Gaps, the cost of mixed levels of English and Maths… and the importance of inclusion to fill skills gaps!

I am going to start with some interesting reports released this week. My word The Learning & Work Institute were busy on Friday… they released two reports!

The importance of English and Maths for opportunities and levelling up

First up Literacy and Numeracy levels in Adults could have a knock-on effect for Levelling Up. Now this is interesting.. as this could influence lifelong learning, CPD, productivity, employability… very, very interesting and we are keen to explore this more with future articles. So watch this space (well sort of literally as it will no doubt appear in a future FE Soundbite)!

Green Skills Gaps – how do we improve awareness on what Green Skills and Green jobs actually are?

L&W and WorldSkillsUK also launched another report exploring the Green Skills Gaps. This was called Skills for a Net Zero economy. This to me, is incredibly interesting as the report highlights – that despite wanting jobs to combat climate change – and increasing employer demand for green skills – young people do not understand enough about what ‘green skills’ and ‘green jobs’ actually are, warns a report released today Wow, so this has a careers advice and guidance implication, and then how to backfill what employers… what the Government targets and what we all need to have a sustainable and low impact economy… but to do this, we need to get the foundations right and work out the routes and what the jobs are. Very interesting!

We need more diversity as we are wasting talent and opportunity

CMI released the ‘everyone economy’ report... now this was a very cool report. Conclusions are stark: unless UK employers raise their game, the public will pay the price in terms of lost growth, productivity, innovation and quality of public services.

Two sets of findings from CMI were incredibly interesting… and like whhhaattt? Erm, it is the 21st Century, why is this still happening… but if we know, then we can do something to address this hopefully.

Some interesting findings were:

1. We’re wasting talent just when we need it most.    

• CMI’s analysis shows there are 560,000 missing female managers in the UK right now, and to equal the proportion of females in the UK population by 2026 an additional 800,000 female managers will be needed – an increase of 24% from 2021.
• CMI’s analysis shows that the UK has 420,000 missing managers from lower socio-economic backgrounds.    
• There is an almost 30 percentage point difference between the working age employment rate (81%) and the disability employment rate (57.2%). At management level, CMI’s analysis shows there are 290,000 missing disabled managers.    

2. Stellar talent is overlooked across the economy    

• 41% of employees said they had witnessed colleagues being negatively affected by their background at work.
• Over half (52%) of employees said they had at some point in their career been overlooked for a workplace opportunity because of their identity.
• Reports of discrimination were particularly high from those identifying as LGBTQ+ (64%) and those from Black backgrounds (63%).

So I am keen to unpack this more. So hopefully, watch this space for more articles, as the report is highlighting some really worrying points and also, I bet the above findings are not very shocking to many people (eg they have experienced this as well).. we need change, so I am really keen on more articles, ideas and solutions on this.

The Welsh Government are also rocking it again and coming up with cool innovative ideas again: with the announcement that the Welsh Government is to support 1,200 young people to start their own business. Very cool! Not many people may know, but my Grandad was called Tom Jones (he was fantastic, but couldn’t sing!)… so maybe the Jones part of me is making me all warm and fuzzy about what seems to be constantly happening in Wales, but they seem to be really trying, experimenting and exploring ideas to make a difference. I love this.

This week we also had World Refugee Day and here is a cool article on how FE is suporting Refugees living and working in the UK .

Epic Exclusive Thought Leaders sharing ideas and solutions:

Oh my, we have some epic exclusive thought leadership for you this week:

David Phillips from City & Guilds wrote a really interesting article: An education reform without FE? It’s like building a house with no foundations, AELP’s Jane Hickie highlights that Rising costs mean skills funding rates must be reviewed more often. Careers Advice guru Chris Webb asks Rapid Change or More of the Same? How can we support individuals to prepare for the ‘Future of Work’? … which was published before the L&W and WorldSkills UK report.. so interesting to explore this more.

My mate Lou Mycroft wrote a great article: Joy at Work: Letting Go of the ‘Stuff’ – I highly recommend checking it out!

I asked Jack Kennedy from Indeed if he could unpack the recent ONS labour market figures and he wrote a really interesting piece: Growth of employment and vacancies appears to be levelling off. So what does this mean?

Giles also wrote an interesting article called Leading by Nature.

This week we had a really interesting and informative Livestream with our friends at the Skills Network called: The AAT Syllabus is Changing! Are you ready? I really enjoyed this… and probably one of the things I enjoyed most about this stream was getting to know Mark Dawe a bit more. I have known Mark for years… but I didn’t realise that he was a Chartered Accountant at KPMG… and has a MA in Economics from Cambridge… but said Oxford on the stream! Palm to forehead! It was a really great stream and was all about supporting learners, educators, leaders and providers. I would highly, highly recommend checking it out.

SkillsWorld LIVE was back with a cool roadshow format:

Skills World Live Roadshow: Levelling-up through further education and skills in the West Midlands

If you are going to the AELP conference next week, I hope you have a great time. I am sorry I can’t be with you in Hammersmith. I love that conference… it is great to see everyone, there is always great content… and I have a tradition of grabbing some Turkish food from a restaurant on the big roundabout the night before!

I am also sorry I couldn’t catch up with people at the EdTechXEurope event in London this week. I have been told to take it easy for a little bit. I had a bleed on my optic nerve a few weeks ago (turns out to have been four bleeds according to the scan), so I am now a medical mystery as to why. So whilst all the investigations are happening I have been told to take it easy and I said… does that involve me going to conferences… it was erm, no! So I am sorry I can’t make these sort of things at the moment.