As educators, we’re all committed to helping young people succeed, whatever success looks like for them as individuals. In particular, making sure that learners have workplace skills and are ready for the jobs of the future is one of our main objectives.
But in practice, securing your first job can be a real challenge, especially when you may not have built up enough work experience for your CV yet. Instead, young people have to lean on their volunteering experiences as a way to demonstrate their skills.
In this respect, the new government have promised to take a refreshed approach to careers advice and work experience for young people, pledging two weeks’ worth of quality work experience and building stronger relationships between schools, colleges and local employers.
This strategy looks set to benefit one million 18-21 year olds in conjunction with greater access to careers advice and promises to address challenges faced by schools and colleges in providing meaningful work experience opportunities for their students.
We believe strongly that all young people should have access to developing essential leadership skills through taking part in purposeful and valuable volunteering and work experiences. This is why all our programmes include practical application and volunteer opportunities alongside theory work.
Helping young people feel work ready
In the UK right now, there is a growing skills gap. According to the British Chamber of Commerce, two-thirds of businesses believe that secondary schools are not effective at preparing young people for work. This is backed up by data from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), who report that 44% of employers don’t view school, college or university leavers as being “work ready”.
In the same study, 7/10 employers rate skills such as communication, teamwork and self-belief as being top three factors when recruiting school and college leavers, so it’s clear that transferrable skills rather than specific, technical knowledge are in-demand and essential.
Meanwhile, funding for training has flatlined in recent years, partially as a result of the cost of living crisis, with fewer employers able to make provisions for their staff, adding to the onus falling on schools – despite their own pressures.
That said, with plans now being rolled out to increase the scale and value of work experience opportunities for young people in partnership with local industries and employers, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future in this respect.
As part of our qualifications, learners are required to take part in volunteering to both develop and practically apply their skills. Activities like these have long been vital for schools in working with other schools and local employers to support their events and prepare students for the workplace.
Building connections between learners and employers
Working in partnership with local businesses to address the skills gap is not a new challenge – looking at government guidance around implementing Local Skills Improvement Plans from October 2022 confirms that this has been a topic under close consideration for a while.
A key part of that guidance refers to creating a better match between the supply of and demand for the skills employers most need to thrive and boost productivity (and therefore growth). In practice, this means better and more consistent communication between employers and education providers to make sure everyone is on the same page.
The guidance also suggests that it shouldn’t all be one-way. Improving the supply of skills needs to be accompanied by greater employer engagement and investment in skills and support for learners through industry-relevant post-16 education and careers guidance.
This speaks to a view we have held for a long time, which is that while you can develop and teach skills, they need investment and planning – it doesn’t just happen or come easily. If you believe they are important, then you have to invest in them, whether you are a learner, employer or educator.
One element of this investment is creating an environment where skills can be developed and learned, and then practically applied through relevant experience. Our tutors always tell us that they see the greatest steps from their learners as a result of putting their skills into practice and encouraging others to develop their own skills. Leadership and teamwork go hand-in-hand.
Keeping skill development on the national agenda
Two years on from the publication of the above guidance around local skills investment plans, we’re seeing evidence that they can be effective and make a real difference. The British Chamber of Commerce reported in February 2024 that plans across England “are working and beginning to make positive difference for local employers”, with evidence pointing to changing attitudes and greater collaboration between employers and education.
More recently, the launch of Skills England has huge potential for the development of skills across the nation and in bringing together young people, schools and employers. By feeding into the government’s broader Industrial Strategy, there is a real chance to keep the post-16 skills system high up on the agenda and support learners with the development of essential skills. This can also be seen in Scotland, where Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) is already working to build stronger connections between students and employers, creating inspirational opportunities for them to understand the skills needed to succeed and put them into practice.
To ensure the longevity of this new appetite for skill development, there also needs to be further commitment to ensuring access and availability to developing them.
Thinking about my own experiences in my career, I have gained as much personal development from workshops and conferences as I have from formal qualifications – it’s the combination of both that really works. Learning in a classroom or from a textbook is important as it provides the foundations and the theory, but I’ve always found the greatest benefit from applying those lessons practically. By speaking to other people and taking on board their experiences, then putting your own skills into practice, you add an extra dimension to learning through near-instant feedback on what makes the most impact.
Focusing on skills development is a balancing act for most schools, however. Traditionally, so much attention has been on meeting inspection criteria and boosting exam results.
Part of the journey, not the destination
While our programmes support young people to develop skills that help them feel more confident and more empowered, the skills themselves aren’t really the end goal – it’s being able to put them into practice in real-life situations. The experience gained from using the skills is what prepares young people for their next chapter in education or their first steps in work.
And we’re also confident that our learning programmes offer more than many people expect, providing schools with a tangible demonstration of their work to develop learners’ character and increase their confidence. Our research also shows that over two-thirds of learners on Leadership Skills Foundation programmes believe their qualification helped them to improve attainment in other subjects (Institute for Voluntary Research).
As an organisation, we want to avoid being a cog in a qualifications factory and we want to make sure that our learners are able to go on and be successful, whatever that looks like to them.
To help achieve this, we listen to our learners and we regularly connect and work with other organisations to gain a greater understanding of workforce and industry needs. It can be easy to operate in a bubble, so while taking this approach means we sometimes have to go out on a limb or step into environments outside our comfort zone, it allows us as an organisation to be constantly developing and learning. If we want to encourage this in the young people we work with, we have to start with ourselves.
We believe that helping young people develop in-demand skills and put them into practice in real-life situations is the best way for them to grow and feel empowered. Addressing the skills gap isn’t something that can be fixed instantly by moving inspection goalposts, but recognising the importance of essential skills and the power of volunteering experience in just about any environment or workplace is certainly the first step.
Liam Hope leads our work in engaging centres and partners that share our commitment to developing leadership skills and helping young people feel empowered for their future.
