Skills and economic policy – the current

choice and use of different training

methods

12 April 2013

Skills Development in Higher Education Conference

Martyn Sloman & Marius Meyer

@SABPP1

1 martynsloman@me.com

Higher education challenges

• Role in socio-economic and political landscape

• Skills shortages – talent management

• Competition vs collaboration

• Technology

• Youth unemployment

• Retaining academics

• Limited resources

• Link with other skills imperatives, e.g. QCTO, NSDS111

Ederer (2007)

Internships – adding practice to

knowledge

An internship is an intervention

Employer complaints about the

knowledge of graduates

Interns learning and applying their

knowledge in practice

Employer commitment to integrated

skills development

Reduction in youth unemployment

4

Training and skills policy objectives

Economic competition in the global economy 1

Social inclusion of all sections of the community 2

Global quiz

7

Is the largest manufacturer of PCs in the world? 1

Processes more internet transactions than Amazon and eBay combined?

2

Is home to Embraer – the leading aircraft maker? 3

Appears in the BCG 2013 list of 100 global challengers? 5

Which company?

Which country?

Which South African company?

Is home to TUF – owner of the largest tinned tuna brands in the US, the UK and France?

4

The quality-cost revolution

…the breakneck speed at which China and India…compete for high-value goods and services.

This is shattering the view that the economic world would remain divided between head nations and body nations. New competition is no longer based on quality or cost but on quality and cost, offering companies more strategic choices about their global distribution of high-skill

and low-skills work

BCG Top 100 “Global

Challengers”

• 2006: firms came from 7 countries. 84

companies from the BRIC countries

including 44 from China alone

• 2013: firms came from 17 countries. Only

13 from China

• Shift from heavy industry to consumer-

orientation – financial services, e-

commerce, health care, food

manufacturing

10

Revenues above $1billion, foreign revenues at least 10%

Competitive advantage through

enhanced workforce skills

“We need employers to become more productive and effective in their field, capable of competing globally in the high skills, knowledge driven economy, and optimising the talent and skills of their people”.

“Our people will have the skills, expertise and flair to take on higher quality and higher level jobs, across the whole range of occupations. It will put us in a virtuous cycle of better skills, better jobs and higher wages”.

“Changes in technology, international markets, products and consumer demand will continue to drive the need for higher and different skills, including literacy and numeracy, technical skills, and managerial and leadership skills”.

The productivity problem

“Over the last decade, New Zealand has suffered from poor productivity growth and a relative decline in the internationally competitive sectors of the economy. Export growth has been patchy in recent years and our current account deficit has grown unsustainably large”.

Prime Minister John Key , May 2009 Budget Speech

“New Zealanders choose to be poorer than other nations because we choose to work in low-wage activities. Our land-based industries are the bed-rock of our economy. Dairying is to us what minerals are to Australia. And yet, as this book will show, we cannot build a successful modern economy based on pastoral farming and horticulture alone” .

Paul Callaghan,‘ Wool to Weta’, 2009

The job summit

and the nine-day fortnight

200 participants invited attended a one-day summit in Auckland on 27 February 2009. “The best and brightest ideas from those at the job market coal-face”.

• voluntary agreement to reduce hours to nine-day

fortnight

• employer receives five hours payment at adult

minimum wage

• workers in scheme would not be made redundant

The Prime Minister stated that he would give priority to taxpayer-paid training subsidies for workers to develop their skills on the tenth-day. An idea that he wanted to investigate “without delay”.

• 11 March YouTube announcement

• the Prime Minister stated the scheme would go

ahead but the training element would be ‘decoupled’

• investigations had demonstrated the complexity of training provision

• various indications of training opportunities forthcoming: financial literacy, c.v. preparation, health and safety

• obligatory training unenforceable

20

‘Indentured apprentices’

entered into a formal

agreement and spent time

under a master craftsman to

get what was known as their

‘ticket’.

21

Apprenticeships must: deliver high quality, nationally-recognised

qualifications relevant to the skill, trade or occupation of the

learner and employer; offer individuals appropriate training to

achieve a good standard of literacy and numeracy and ICT

(information and communications technology), where relevant to

the skill, trade or occupation; involve at least 280 hours of guided

learning per year; deliver training that directly meets the needs of

employers and learners.

‘Apprenticeship’ is now a framework for work-based learning

which is used as the basis for paying training providers – both

Further Education Colleges and private sector training

companies.

22

Existing employees have been re-labelled as apprentices, usually as a result of

a training provider persuading an employer to become involved in the state-

funded scheme. Conversions are the easiest way for government to increase

apprenticeship numbers (particularly for people aged 19 and over) and increase

the stocks of qualifications in the workforce. Fuller and Unwin

Apprenticeships and conversion

……In 2010–11 Elmfield Training received £41 million from the Skills Funding

Agency…. approximately half of that was a result of the Wm Morrison

Supermarkets contract.

23

• a potential platform for higher

education and certainly for

advanced further education

• an alternative route for young

people who do not choose to

remain in full-time education after

16 or do not achieve the GCSEs

required to study at higher levels

• the means of attaining the skills

and qualifications associated with

a specific occupational role while

in employment.

Apprenticeships are now regarded as:

The demands are therefore considerable and possibly

contradictory Fuller and Unwin

Redefinition of apprenticeships?

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We support the significant increase in apprenticeships, but there is

a risk that the rapid expansion may result in the programme

becoming less focused. For that reason the Government needs to

clearly articulate the overarching strategy and purpose of the

apprenticeship programme. The introduction of a definition of

apprenticeships would also ensure greater clarity within that

strategy.

Simply enough, not all instances of training on a job are

apprenticeships. Apprenticeships require a new job role, a role that

is new to the individual and requires them to learn a substantial

amount before they can do that job effectively. An apprenticeship

without a job is a form of vocational training. An apprenticeship in

an old job is on the job training. There must be a job and the job

role must be new.

Thank you