2. Chamberlink July Aug 31-56.qxp_Chamberlink 29/06/2021 11:59 Page 51
The
skills agenda
post-covid By Lee Moore, director of Business Development, Open College Network West Midlands ‘Workers also need their employers to provide high quality on-the-job development and support’
s the country, indeed the whole world, grapples with the impact of Covid-19, education and skills have perhaps never been so important. The future health and fortunes of the economy will, to a large extent, be determined by the strength and pace of a skills led economic recovery that will inevitably require a workforce to up-skill and re-skill into new careers and into the new and emerging jobs of the future.
A
The new Government initiative Lifetime Skills Guarantee, that was launched in April of this year, is testimony to the direction of travel that policy makers are now on in recognising the renewed importance of lifelong learning. This will offer tens of thousands of adults the opportunity to retrain later in life, helping them to gain indemand skills that will open up new job opportunities. The Government’s Industrial Strategy, combined with the
regional and local economic growth plans flowing from the newly formed Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCA’s), is also presenting significant new opportunities for workforce development and skills, not least because each MCA has identified their own regional skills priorities and developed their own regional Skills Plans. These are supported by local FE colleges, employers and other training providers in meeting local skills needs. July/August 2021 CHAMBERLINK 51
