Skills and Training

The Current Market Place

Businesses are now planning for growth, and regard investment in skills as vital to improving productivity and performance. With a new government starting work, businesses have sent very clear messages to all parts of the system – government, schools, training providers, colleges and universities – on the outcomes that must be achieved.

Youth unemployment has risen sharply in the last year, and it is essential that schools training providers and colleges ensure that young people enter the labour market with a strong grasp of basic skills. Employers do not expect everyone to arrive at their door ‘job ready’, but at the very least they want young people who are literate and numerate and who have good employability skills.

Government Priorities

• To support progression of Level 3 apprenticeships; prioritising vocational qualifications that are understood and valued by employers
• Reduce the number of 16-24 year olds who are not in employment, education or training
• Commitment to continue investment in colleges and training organisations, recognising the critical role played in building our economic future
• Implement efficiency savings to public funding enabling the sector to fall in line with the Comprehensive Spending Review

Skills and training

A4e Skills works nationally to deliver Apprenticeships. This has enabled us to develop strong local expertise emanating from regional hubs, ensuring that we are well positioned to respond to community and employer requirements.

We’ve worked hard to develop our position as a leading contributor to government targets throughout the last three years and built a strong platform upon which to grow skills provision in 2010-11.

Youth Engagement

The balance of young people in the 16-18 category on Apprenticeship programmes has grown proportionately to the adult group and is expected to continue to grow throughout the next five years. This supports the Government’s vision of 1 in 5 young people completing an Apprenticeship by 2020.
The truly flexible, work-based nature of our provision removes many of the common barriers to learning and encourages participation for learners taking their first steps into employment. We’ve also implemented relevant and effective engagement strategies aimed at school leavers such as social networking campaigns and working with corporate clients to promote dedicated Apprenticeship programmes.

Adult Engagement

A4e Skills continues to contribute strongly to the adult skills targets for foundation level, level 2 and level 3 provision through the development of several key contracting strands:

• 19+ Apprenticeships continue to attract, year on year, significant cohorts of learners across all of  our industry sectors despite the recession and recent economic climate.
• Adult Apprenticeships (25+) have proved to be the preferred vocational route by employers. Funding for this cohort was previously prohibited, but since its inception has been a very popular choice.
• Skills for Life – supporting the development of those adult candidates needing both stand alone literacy and numeracy support and also support toward the achievement of their full vocational level 2 qualifications. We have worked hard to drive the achievement of full literacy and numeracy qualifications leading many learners onto higher level programmes.