The UK needs to provide more staff training in order to adopt a high "training culture", according to Matthew Hancock, skills minister. Speaking at a Work Foundation conference on skills, Mr Hancock said that training providers, employers and the government need to work together to provide more training for those wishing to gain more workplace skills.
Employers need to place more importance in vocational training, he continued, in order to provide a higher number of skilled workers. Companies should put more focus on training employees in order to create a more skilled workforce and not worry about the fact that trained staff are more likely to be poached by other businesses, continued Mr Hancock.
“We must break out of a low training culture and make training a better, more reliable investment. We have a once in a generation chance to crack it and get vocational education to do what it’s supposed to do: give students real value training and give employers the skills they need.”
The skills minister proposed "three Rs" that could help to repair the growing skills gap in the UK and provide a higher quality of training throughout all working sectors. Responsiveness, which would see employers given more power to design training schemes that work well for them, rather than setting out universal options. The minister also proposed rigour, in terms of basic skills training, and a revolution in training attitudes.
Not only will improvements in the UK's training culture help to fill the widening skills gap, it could also help toward reducing youth unemployment figures, Mr Hancock said. Currently, there is a growing number of young people out of work due to not having the skills needed by companies or having the wrong skills for the sector they want to push into.
By introducing a higher number of apprenticeships and traineeships – designed to ease the transition into full-time work – employers can help to provide much needed training for their future workforce.
