Skills and Employability Service

Skills and Employability Service

Maximising Opportunities for Kent’s Young People

Technical Paper 2

Shaping the Future – The Post 16 Skills Plan, the Guilds and Employer Engagement

The government’s ambition is that every young person, after an excellent grounding in the core academic subjects and a broad and balanced curriculum to age 16, is presented with two choices: the academic or the technical option. The academic option is already well regarded, but the technical option must also be world-class. As with the reforms in higher education, it is necessary to improve both the quality of education and student choice. There should be appropriate bridging courses to make movement between the two options easily accessible.

The bifurcation of routes, the academic option and the technical option, allows for a foundation year in which students have another opportunity to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes before embarking on a two year course.

This foundation year could well be offered by schools to develop, for example, English and maths, technical learning at a lower level, work experience and personal development. This would be funded. This could take the place of technical programmes which colleges would in future offer.

The bifurcation is explained on the next page.

The full version of the plan can be found here:

The Government has identified 15 proposed technical routes. Kent has an opportunity now to develop post 16 learning across the county with this framework.

The proposed routes are:

Route / Job roles
Agriculture, Environmental and Animal Care
/ Conservationist, park ranger, farmer, horticulturalist, agricultural manager, agricultural technician
Business and Administrative / Human resources officer, office manager, administrative officer, housing officer
Catering and Hospitality / Chef, butcher, baker, catering manager, events manager
Construction / Bricklayer/mason, electrician, building/civil engineering technician, carpenter/joiner, construction supervisor
Creative and Design / Arts producer, graphic designer, audio-visual technician, journalist, product/clothing designer, upholsterer, tailor, furniture maker
Digital / IT business analyst/systems designer, programmer, software developer, IT technician, web designer, network administrator
Engineering and Manufacturing / Engineering technician, vehicle mechanic, aircraft fitter, printer, process technician, energy plant operative
Hair and Beauty / Hairdresser, barber, beauty therapist
Health and Science / Nursing assistant, pharmaceutical technician, sports therapist, laboratory technician, dental nurse, food technician
Legal, Finance and Accounting / Accounting technician, paralegal, financial account manager, payroll manager, finance officer, legal secretary
Protective Services / Police officer, fire service officer, non-commissioned officer (NCO), maritime operations officer (coastguard)
Sales, Marketing and Procurement / Buyer, procurement officer, sales account manager, market research analyst, estate agent
Social Care / Care worker, residential warden, home carer, probation officer, welfare counsellor
Transport and Logistics / Ship’s officer, railway signalling technician, HGV driver

The developing Guilds of employers can support these routes (as they can currently) by working with providers as part of the Skills and Employability Service’s employer engagement strategy.

Guilds

Guilds have been established across 8 key skills sectors. They are made up from training providers, colleges, HE’s, schools, employers, LA’s and industry experts.

The purpose of this Guild is to meet the needs of the industry by working in partnership. Each Guild has the same terms of reference to raise the profile of the sector and promote it as a progressive employment pathway, whilst meeting the skills needs of the economy.

Below is a table which shows the Guilds and the Skills and Employability Service Officers assigned to each of the Guilds:

Current Guilds / Skills and Employability Service Officer (assigned to the Guild)
Guild co-coordinator / David Knox
03000 416359
07824 305740

Construction and the Built Environment / Alicia Moyles
03000 421942
07841 315758

Creative and Media / David Knox
03000 416359
07824 305740

Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing, Environmental Technologies and Energy / Guy Robinson
03000 419218
07834 417686

Healthcare / Chris Homewood
03000 416261
07872 680920

Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism and Transport / Owen Bartholomew
03000 415821

Land Based / Karen Laponder/ Gemma Clarke
03000 416371
07540673496

Sciences / Rajmund Brent
03000 410099
07717507160

Financial Services / Sean Carter
03000 417044
07725 785386

Each of the guilds has four main priorities:

•Apprenticeships

–To provide advice and guidance to improve the recruitment of apprenticeships

•Workforce Development

–Identify skills and training opportunities to meet future skills needs

•Education, Employment and Skills

–Promote a positive image of the sectors and develop sustainable recruitment routes

•Overarching and Co-ordination of Activities

–Share good practice ,knowledge and experience across all the Guilds

Why engage with the Guilds?

The benefit to schools in engaging with the Guilds is it provides the chance to work with employers so that the future workforce will have the appropriate skills set to meet the needs of their business.

The guilds provide a platform by which you can raise the awareness of young people to the apprenticeship offer. Shifting the perceptions of young people is a key thread running through many of the guilds’ action plans. Many guilds are working towards the establishment of careers fairs.

Being involved with the guilds means you will be able to device new strategies that can support that labour market, such as a Charter Mark for the Guilds and an employability passport.

For the young person, having businesses engage in the provision of skills is most advantageous. Without the correct information, advice and guidance, a young person can enrol on an educational course which is unlikely to result in a job at its completion, because there is no demand within the employment market. By Schools engaging with the Guilds, they can support the collection of information about the skills shortages within the market place – and the transmission of that information.

Secondly, the young person can benefit by being exposed to the apprenticeship opportunities that may exist within the business or the wider sector – expanding the choices available to them.

Rajmund Brent

David Knox

Skills and Employability Service Kent

November 2016