Duncan O'Leary
Duncan works on projects looking at public services, skills and work.
I am just writing a provocation paper for a Demos event with Bill Ramell on January 30th (details to go up on the website shortly) looking at adult learning (see the Confronting the skills paradox project page) and just came across this from Martim Wolf in the FT on the Leitch Review of Skills. I think he makes one point that may be very important:
'The new system is also to be built on already existing "employment training pilots"…it is not obvious why the state should subsidise the job-specific training that employers desire. Far more important are general skills. These are hard to acquire after someone leaves school. But if this is to happen at all, it is through individual effort. It makes sense, therefore, for any subsidy to go to individuals rather than employers.'
The centrepeice of the Review (if you ask me) is the shift from planning to ‘demand-led’ as a strategy. But the big question is what does ‘demand-led’ mean. Who should do the ‘demanding’ – companies, who may not be around in ten years’ time. Or the people who work for them, who hopefully will be? What makes a flexible labour market really flexible? Job specific skills chosen by an employer or the skills chosen by a individual with a career, or number of jobs in mind. Can you ‘personalise’ learning if you don’t control the content?
Any thoughts/interesting bits of reading drop me an email or leave us a comment...
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