Today, 18 May 2021, The Skills and post-16 Education Bill was introduced in Parliament. The bill underpins the government’s ‘skills and training revolution’.
According to the Government, the reforms outlined in the Bill will create more routes into skilled employment in the sectors that the economy needs. These include engineering, digital, and manufacturing. The Government claims that this will help more people to secure well-paid jobs and level-up the nation’s economy.
According to the Government, the key measures introduced in today’s Bill are:
- ‘Embedding employers in the heart of the skills system, by making it a legal requirement that employers and colleges collaborate to develop skills plans so that the training on offer meets the need of local areas, and so people no longer have to leave their home-towns to find great jobs.
- ‘Supporting the transformation of the current student loans system which will give every adult access to a flexible loan for higher-level education and training at university or college, useable at any point in their lives.
- ‘Introducing new powers to intervene when colleges are failing to deliver good outcomes for the communities they serve, and to direct structural change where needed to ensure colleges improve.’
New data analysis from the Government demonstrates the importance of further and technical education to the country’s economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the research, training started by adults in further education in 2018/19 is estimated to generate an extra £26 billion over their working lives.
For more information on skills and training reform, click here.