Higher Education and the current skills agenda

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Higher Education and the current skills agenda

• Alan Gilbert
• Commissioner, UKCES
• President and Vice-Chancellor
• The University of Manchester

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A framework for skills and jobs
Positive Economic and Social Outcomes
Supply of Skills
Employment Demand
Negative Economic and Social Outcomes
Demand
Jobs
Supply
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A framework for skills and jobs
Economic Performance
Positive Economic and Social Outcomes
Employment
Productivity
Reduced Inequality
Supply of Skills
Employment Demand
Negative Economic and Social Outcomes

• Shortages and skills gaps
• Unemployment and Inactivity
• Over-skilled / Under-employed
• Migration

Jobs
Demand
Supply
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Robert Reich (1992), The Work of Nations

• 40 of a post-industrial workforce would be made
  up of knowledge workers (symbolic analysts)
• Access to high quality knowledge workers would be
  the primary determinant of success for
  corporations and nations in the 21st Century
• Relying on poaching other peoples knowledge
  workers would be a grossly irresponsible, high
  risk national policy

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UK Skills Formation in Context

• UK Commission on Employment and Skills,
• Working Futures 2007-17
• (January 2009)

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UK Workforce Change 2007-2017Major growth in
high level skills
Over 100 of all expansion demand
13,451
Source UKCES, Working Futures 2007-17, January
2009
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The UK Qualifications Profile 1997-2007Good
progress over last decade!
40
-26
Source Labour Force Survey, 2008 Note Working
age population 19 59/64
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Productivity and employment in OECDWhere are we
now?
High employment/ high productivity
High employment/ low productivity
Employment Employment populations ratio 2007,
all persons 15-64
Low employment/ low productivity
Low employment/ high productivity
Productivity GDP per hour worked (US at current
prices), 2007
Source UKCES, Ambition 2020 World Class Skills
and Jobs for the UK, 2009, pp 21-22
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The competition is globalImprovements are too
slow at tertiary level

• UK Position
• 12th in OECD for older workers
• 15th in OECD for younger workers

Source OECD, Education at a Glance 2007. Table
A1.3a
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Overall Commission Assessment

• Good progress over ten years to 2006-07
• Solid employment and productivity positions but
  not yet top 8 OECD
• High level skills improved by more than third
• No qualifications cohort reduced by more than a
  quarter
• Literacy improvements are excellent
• Performance changes and plans since 2006 offer
  cause for optimism
• BUT progress by many international competitors
  to 2006 has been better
• UK productivity slowly improving, employment good
  but slightly declining
• Skills improvements by many nations exceeding
  rate of UK change
• International challenge will increase as all
  governments prioritise skills
• Foundations of policy recommendations already in
  place or on the way
• Integrated policy/strategy for business
  development, employment and skills
• More strategic, agile, demand-led employment and
  skills supply side
• Maximising individual aspiration and opportunity
  for skills
• Increasing employer ambition, engagement and
  investment in skills
• Support for community level action to maximise
  skills and employment to close gaps

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Higher Education Skills Formation

• At worst seen as precious, arrogant and supply
  side (Dont worry, we already cover all those
  skills. )
• Graduates (ambivalently) seen as world class
  and regarded by many employers as being deficient
  in key employability skills.
• Many examples of emerging good practice.

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The baby and bathwater problem

• There IS a proper tension between an authentic
  university and employers, politicians and policy
  makers
• Destroy it any youve lost something precious

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The baby and bathwater problem

• A University PRESERVES and TRANSMITS knowledge
• It CRITIQUES and CHALLENGES conventional
  paradigms
• It INVENTS new ideas and technologies and
  ADVANCES knowledge
• It TRANSFORMS current ideas of best practice and
• It FRUSTRATES and (sometimes) ENRAGES those with
  day-to-day economic responsibilities.

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The baby and bathwater problem

• We must preserve those profoundly creative,
  transformational functions of higher education
  BUT
• We must show precisely the same rigour in
  CRITIQUING ourselves
• Instead, universities can be arrestingly
  complacent and conservative and
• At present, the best evidence is that UK higher
  education is performing sub-optimally in relation
  skills formation.

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The Manchester Response

• AIMS
• Superb U/G and P/G degree qualifications
  combining authentic education (hyper-competencies)
  with superb skills formation (higher
  competencies), conducted in professional contexts
  if possible AND
• Superb executive education and CPD-
  demand-driven- bespoke- flexible delivery

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The Manchester Response

• U/G Degree Programmes
• Piloting the Higher Education Achievement Record
  (HEAR)
• Transforming U/G curricula in ways that are
  explicitly purposeful in relation to skills
  formation.

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The Manchester Response

• We have adopted a curriculum design template
• THE PURPOSES OF A MANCHESTER UNDERGRADUATE
  EDUCATION
• The Manchester Matrix
• Every unit and every programme must set out
  explicitly in advance what educational purposes
  are being served, what particular skills are
  being developed and how these purposes and skills
  are going to be assessed.

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THE PURPOSES OF A MANCHESTER UNDERGRADUATE
EDUCATION
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THE PURPOSES OF A MANCHESTER UNDERGRADUATE
EDUCATION
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THE PURPOSES OF A MANCHESTER UNDERGRADUATE
EDUCATION
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