When international companies are considering whether or not to locate or expand in the UK, the skills of the local population can be key to their decision. This is true even more so in an era of advanced manufacturing techniques, digital transformations and the global transition to a clean energy economy.
The trouble is, even if those skills exist, they aren’t always evenly distributed across the country – which means that efforts to attract inward investment can also affect the UK’s levelling up agenda to reduce regional disparities.
The UK government’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, which is tasked with ironing out regional inequalities, has proposed devolving more power so that local leaders are able to drive the changes needed to create a level playing field for young people.
Skills training will be a crucial part of this, as highlighted in WorldSkills UK’s Levelling Up report. WorldSkills UK is a partnership between education, industry and UK governments that works to raise standards in technical education and apprenticeships, champions future skills and empowers young people to succeed. Parisa Shirazi, head of skills development and international competition at WorldSkills UK, says it has been promoting “excellence across the UK by developing a world-class group of educators who are delivering and driving up standards and aspirations”.
WorldSkills UK runs a Centre of Excellence in partnership with NCFE, an education charity and national awarding organisation based in Newcastle. “It’s a teacher training programme where we have reached just over 2,000 educators over the last three years, and we are training and developing those teachers and trainers so that they’re able to apply world-class practices in the classroom,” says Shirazi.
The centre has seen £1.5m in investment and has had an effect on some of the most deprived communities in the UK. Five institutions that the centre works with are in areas of high deprivation, with 31 institutions situated in regions deemed by UK governments as being a “priority” due to low levels of formal qualifications.
“It’s about identifying great practice, understanding what works, creating content and giving learning experiences to practitioners to enable them to develop a level of excellence they can pass on to the learners that they support,” says NCFE chief executive David Gallagher. “Ultimately it’s for excellence to be available to everyone in the vocational and technical system, not just to the elite or the more affluent areas or colleges. But to take it to the mainstream, to really make excellence in teaching and learning available, particularly for disadvantaged groups, deprived communities or underrepresented groups.”
WorldSkills UK is part of the global skills movement WorldSkills, which provides the opportunity to benchmark the UK’s skill base against the best of the world – and bring international best practice back to the UK. Through the Centre of Excellence, WorldSkills UK is giving educators access to its international skills insights to help upskill tens of thousands of apprentices.
The current three-year Centre of Excellence pilot programme with NCFE ends in the summer, but will relaunch in September.
Its impact on teaching staff and learners has been palpable. “We can literally see the difference it’s making. Access to great mentoring and coaching, and support for staff from lead practitioners in their fields has helped them improve their teaching practice,” says Zoe Lewis, principal and chief executive, Middlesbrough College. “Ultimately the support we give our teaching staff feeds directly to improving the students’ learning experience,” she adds.
In 2020, Barking and Dagenham College was chosen to take part in the WorldSkills UK Centre of Excellence programme.
Nineteen-year-old Yeaba Shamsher Astha, from Dagenham, completed a BTec in engineering there last year and attributes her success to having access to industry level equipment, alongside being taught by knowledgable and supportive teachers.
“Studying at a Centre of Excellence gave me a head start getting on to the degree of my choice. I like finding creative solutions to everyday problems and I love maths, so engineering was a good study choice for me and will hopefully lead me into a well-paid job.”
Another student who has benefited from the programme is Adam Kirkpatrick. He attended Northern Regional College in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.On the benefits of the college being part of the WorldSkills UK Centre of Excellence programme, Kirkpatrick says: “The teaching staff were fantastic at the college and were always happy to support me and provide further information on specific topics. The equipment at the college is industry standard, so you feel prepared to work in the real world.”
While at the college, Kirkpatrick was also encouraged to train for and enter a competition in industrial robotics that is run by WorldSkills UK. “Not only was I able to develop a range of industry skills, but wider skills such as endurance, patience, and commitment,” he says.
WorldSkills UK and the wider WorldSkills network of 80 countries use competitions, across a range of different disciplines, to develop young people’s technical skills and enable them to gain valuable employability skills.
After winning a silver medal with his teammate at the competition, Kirkpatrick went on to train for the international finals under the guidance of Karla Kosch, an engineering lecturer at Northern Regional College. Kosch is also the lead for the Centre of Excellence at the college.
Kirkpatrick recalls: “Being part of Team UK for the WorldSkills international finals was a real boost for my confidence. During the competition we had to demonstrate world-class skills in a competitive environment. The whole experience has really improved my public speaking skills and boosted my confidence in advance of graduating from university and kickstarting my career.”
Gallagher also highlights the importance of finding role models that students from underrepresented groups and disadvantaged backgrounds can connect with. “We wanted the Centre of Excellence to re-energise, re-enthuse and inspire the educators themselves – because if that educator is inspired, there’s a far greater chance they are going to be inspiring.”
Register for the WorldSkills UK International Skills Summit: International Skills Summit 4: Skills for the future – WorldSkills UK
