Developing Skills for Jobs

 It is an exciting time for employers and skills. The Skills for Jobs White Paper published in January 2021 is in the final stages of being formalised into the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill.

What is expected in the Bill?

• A flexible Lifetime Skills Guarantee (including Lifelong Loan Entitlement)
• Providing advanced technical and higher technical skills
• Putting employers at the heart of post-16 skills

The Lifetime Skills Guarantee is a government-backed initiative which is transforming the skills system so that everyone, no matter where they live or what their background, can gain the skills they need to progress in work at any stage of their lives.

Adult learning loans will be made more flexible, which will make studying easier for those who want to study shorter courses to develop their career path, upskill or retrain. There are many free* Level 2 and Level 3 programmes that are available for adults to enrol onto, visit our Study Online site to find out more. 

At UCN we have been working on developing short course programmes at Level 4 and Level 5 (Higher Certificate/ Higher Diploma) that are suitable for upskilling, those looking for a career change and individuals who would like to gain a higher level qualification, but on a more flexible basis. These will be available for Graphic Design from 2022 and new short courses in Robotics are in development.

The digitisation of industry is driving the explosive growth of robotics development across a variety of industries. By developing concept design and programming skills employers can realise distinct advantages in the form of efficiency gains, increased throughput, improved quality and reduced utility consumption across their businesses. Development in this field is vital to the nation’s ambitions on regional prosperity and for shared global challenges such as net-zero and environmental sustainability. Please contact the UCN team for more information about the new flexible short courses.

I have written in many previous articles the ways in which we are supporting employers to be at the heart of post-16 skills. We are always looking for employers to support the skills development of local people, you can do this by:

• providing industry placements
• joining us as guest speakers
• supporting apprenticeships
• participating in sector specific employer forums
• providing ‘real life’ projects for students to complete, and
• participating in curriculum development to ensure that colleges are delivering the knowledge and skills that meet the needs of industry.