With many career pathways to consider in a developing work environment, Nicholas Wyman discusses the optimistic way schools and employer groups are working together in a reinvention of learning as well as discovering what is right for a community and what is right for the individual in a changing and developing technological age.
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Alix Robertson | Oct 2015
“People without jobs and jobs without people” was Australian chief executive Nicholas Wyman’s chosen topic for the 2015 Edge Foundation Annual Lecture, as he spoke about the challenge of the ‘skills gap’.
Mr Wyman delivered his keynote speech to an audience at Glaziers Hall, in London Bridge, following an introduction from former Education Secretary and Edge Foundation chair Lord Kenneth Baker.
His top three recommendations for tackling the skills gap began with on-the-job training from school age, followed by determining the skills gap in the labour market and linking it to skill areas in the curriculum. His top tip was to build in better collaboration between training providers and industry.
Mr Wyman acknowledged that not everyone might agree with the idea of a ‘skills gap’, but said: “I personally believe there is a skills gap and I say that because people are leaving our education systems without the skills that employers need.”
As chief executive officer of the Australian Institute for Workplace Skills and Innovation, he gave a global perspective on the topic, covering education systems from Singapore to Canada, but said “there is no silver bullet, there is no one system that is going to solve this labour market mismatch”.
In the context of an aging population, Mr Wyman said engaging young people and securing the labour pipeline is vital, and leaving the problem to governments to solve is not good enough.
“I say it’s industry’s problem. I say it’s the educators’ problem. I say it’s a problem for communities and a problem for parents — everyone needs to be involved in the conversation,” he added.
The event’s keynote speech was followed by a panel discussion, chaired by David Harbourne, acting chief executive officer of the Edge Foundation. The debate covered a range of topics, including concerns that the government’s proposed large employers’ apprenticeship levy could fail to address challenges in FE.
Panel member Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the CIPD, the independent body for HR and people development, said controls around the quality of apprenticeships were needed, as well as increasing the number to the government’s target of 3m by 2020.
“The danger of the levy is unless there’s some controls around quality, it could just end up boosting the numbers and not necessarily increasing the quality,” he said.
Mr Willmott’s comments came in response to a question raised by a representative from the Education and Training Foundation, who expressed concerns about funding struggles in the FE sector and an insufficient number of employers coming forward to provide opportunities for young people in vocational education.
The event panel was completed by David Meller, chair of the National Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network; Deirdre Hughes, principal research fellow, Warwick Institute for Employment Research; and Sue Williamson chief executive SSAT. They were asked whether they thought the levy would be able to tackle such problems.
Mr Willmott said ensuring “businesses and providers are really working collaboratively together” would be key. He cited an example from the CIPD’s consultation response on the apprenticeship levy, in which one employer in the food sector said it would not have its two higher level apprenticeships if the local university had not broached the subject.
“If they’d been left to their own devices that wouldn’t have happened,” said Mr Willmott. “I think it comes back to the issue of partnerships and ecosystems.”
Dr Hughes, former chair of the National Careers Council, focused on the need to address the UK’s “untapped talent”. She said young people who have dropped out of AS or A-level must be engaged in order to help meet apprenticeship targets.
“If you have a look at the number of young people that drop out of AS or A-level … that number is significant,” she said.
“If we’ve got a challenge around meeting apprenticeship targets and we can enthuse employers to take more young people on, then actually I think we need to be thinking around how we can get behind those young people.”
Mr Meller said he was confident government plans for apprenticeships were on track. “I think they will get us to the number of 3m,” he said.
“Our trajectory at the moment is on target to get five/six hundred thousand this year. We are very conscious of working for high quality, we don’t just want a number,” he said, adding that “more and more companies are being signed up every day”.
An expert piece by Dr Hughes on the issues raised in the lecture can be read here:
http://feweek.co.uk/2015/10/16/at-least-100-hours-of-experience-of-the-world-of-work-by-the-age-of-16/
Institute for Workplace Skills and Innovation CEO, Nicholas Wyman, yesterday visited Medway UTC (University Technical College) in the UK.
Medway UTC, located on the Chatham Waters regeneration site in Chatham Maritime, Kent, is a new secondary school which aims to develop in students the skills that employers require.
This new school, which officially opened in September this year, offers a unique educational pathway for 14-19 year olds who want to kick-start their career in two of the most important industries worldwide.
Here students gain hands-on, practical tuition in engineering and construction, with a focus on design technologies, alongside traditional academic studies. They also learn in an environment that looks and feels like a modern, 21st century workplace.
The school’s strategy is common to IWSI CEO Nicholas Wyman’s vision in offering students clear pathways into future jobs and providing them with the right skills they need to achieve this.
Like Mr Wyman, Medway UTC believes meaningful employment for today’s school leavers can be realised through strong industry partnerships.
The Kent based school has teamed up with world leading partners including BAE Systems, Delphi Diesel Systems, BAM Construction, Bouygues Construction, the University of Greenwich, the Royal School of Military Engineering and Mid Kent College.
Medway UTC offers schools partnerships with leading employers, colleges and universities to provide students with the opportunity to gain career connections before they graduate high school.
Link to the school’s website: http://medwayutc.co.uk/medway/
The chief executive of the Institute for Workplace Skills and Innovation recently took to the main stage at the Edge Annual Lecture 2015 to weigh in on the issue of under-employment that is plaguing the UK.
Keynote speaker Nicholas Wyman addressed the conference which took place on Tuesday 13th October at Glaziers Hall, London; raising his concerns about the ‘skills gap’ that many parts of the English-speaking world currently faces.
“In the second quarter of 2015, 1.85 million people in the UK were out of work. Nearly half – 47 per cent – were aged 18-24,” Mr Wyman said. “Meanwhile, employers reported more than 730,000 job vacancies.”
Mr Wyman’s key phrase “people without jobs and jobs without people” summed up the skills gap conundrum: at a time of growing skills shortages, there are still high levels of youth unemployment and graduate under-employment.
He said this problem is not unique to the UK and that in the US 14 million people are unemployed, at the same time as 3.5 million positions remain vacant. The story is similar in Canada, where 1.3 million people are unemployed while 350,000 positions are unfilled.
“The situation is the result of school leavers not having the right skills and experience employers are looking for,” Mr Wyman said. The skills gap, he explained, is greatest in the “middle skilled” labour category which includes electricians, machinists, and plumbers, among others. He said this problem cannot continue to be overlooked.
“The UK needs to turn its attention to career and technical high schools; foundation degrees; apprenticeship programmes; and work-based training for adults,” he told attendees.
“Investing in skills building is a powerful way to help grow your organisation, and strengthen the local economy.”
He said the UK needs to pay greater attention to technical and vocational education pathways and move away from the “university for all” approach in order to provide school leavers with valued skills for a productive working life.
Mr Wyman provided his recommendations for reform which included: building better collaboration between training providers and industry; determine where the skills gap exists and link results to skills areas in school curriculums; and get students on the job training while they are still at school.
Read More:
http://www.edge.co.uk/news/2015/october/edge-annual-lecture
By Nicholas Wyman | Forbes | October 10, 2015
About two years ago I was staying at a hotel with my family in Wayne, Pennsylvania, just northwest of Philadelphia. My wife and I woke at 4 a.m. to a parent’s worst nightmare: my three-year-old son, James, gasping for breath, and turning blue. I called 911 while my wife carried James down to the hotel lobby. In minutes, an ambulance with an emergency medical technician (EMT) and a paramedic roared up to the hotel. The two medics diagnosed an attack of the croup, quickly stabilized James and got him to the hospital, where he made a full recovery.
I never got to thank the people who saved James’ life that night. But in the course of my research I’ve met and interviewed other emergency medical personnel with the same skills and dedication. I learned about the paths they took to their jobs – usually a combination of specialized technical courses (Associate’s Degree or Certificate programs) and on-the-job training. None of the people I talked to had started out with a traditional four-year college degree, and all were making a good living in meaningful and fulfilling careers.
I started wondering about other jobs in the healthcare field that are as patient-focused and rewarding as EMT, and don’t require a bachelor’s degree. I had a chance to find out about some when I spoke with Dr. Bryan Albrecht, President of Gateway Technical College in Wisconsin. Gateway has a significant number of Associate Degree and Certificate programs that lead to jobs in the healthcare industry, which the college and its business partners have identified as one with high future job growth.
One field Dr. Albrecht mentioned particularly intrigued me: Surgical Technology.
Surgical technologists work in the operating room with doctors and nurses, maintaining the sterile field, monitoring a patient’s vital signs and keeping track of instruments (if this sounds easy, consider that an average of 300 instruments are required for a large-cavity operation, and up to 600 for longer surgeries). The surgical technologist prepares the operating theatre, prepares the patient, hands the surgeon the correct instruments, and makes sure every sponge or other foreign object is accounted for when the final stitch is closed.
Most people think you need years of advanced schooling at the highest levels to work in an operating room. To those who don’t learn or test well in a classroom – not to mention those unable or unwilling to shoulder the considerable financial burden of a medical or even nursing school education – work of this kind seems out of reach. But here is a field that prepares people for critical roles in the operating room – helping people when they are at their most helpless – with just a focused, two-year training program.
Dr. Albrecht told me the program is especially popular with young people. “Although the average age of our students is 31 – adults doing technical training for specific jobs – most of the people in the surgical technologist program come straight from high school.”
High school students find out about surgical technology and other technical health fields through Gateway’s outreach program, College Connection. The college sends its representatives into high school classrooms to educate students about in-demand, well-paying jobs in the local community, and the students then come to Gateway to tour the campus and state-of-the-art labs, which include four surgical suites and a simulation lab. “They’re as good as the hospital labs,” notes Dr. Albrecht.
The end result is that students who once thought healthcare jobs were limited to either doctor or nurse are exposed to a diverse network of well-paying careers. Starting pay for a surgical technologist is around $43,350 – a good salary for someone who may be just two years out of high school. But this is often just the first step in a long, upwardly mobile career.
Surgical technologists might take additional courses and training to go into specialty nursing areas. Or they might enroll in pre-med courses. Gateway has articulation agreements with local universities that help students make a smooth transition to a four-year college if they choose.
Says Dr Albrecht, “We’ve been expanding pathways, trying to create a clear direction for students from K-12 to 2- or 4-year colleges.”
My personal experience with highly trained medical personnel showed me how vital these fields are, and how rewarding they can be for those who practice them. You don’t need a four-year college degree (plus four years of medical school, and three years of residency!) to become a critical player in the healthcare field. You can get there via specialized training, focused dedication and a deep commitment to helping people. The opportunities are there, and growing.
Read this and more publications by Nicholas Wyman on Forbes here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholaswyman/2015/10/10/surgical-technologist-a-great-job-that-doesnt-require-a-college-degree/
‘Job U: Find Your Path To A Successful Carer in a Tough Job Market’
by Nicholas Wyman
‘Job U – How to Find Wealth and Success by Developing the Skills Companies Actually Need‘ (US Edition) quickly shot to #1 on the Amazon Hot New Releases in Job Hunting and Career Guides. It has been awarded Best Business Careers book in the International Book Awards and won USA Best Book Awards, Business: Careers category.
Get ready to relearn everything you thought you knew about what a successful career path looks like.