During the 1980s and 1990s, UK policy-makers have stressed that economic competitiveness and national prosperity depend on a highly skilled workforce. At the same time, the meaning of "skill" is now considerably broader than it used to be and embraces a range of desirable behaviours, attitudes and personal characteristics. This feature looks at some of the implications this is likely to have for vocational education and training policy.
Since the late 1980s, UK policy-makers, the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Unions Congress have stressed that national economic competitiveness and prosperity depend crucially on a highly skilled, adaptable and motivated workforce. Since coming to power in May 1997, the Labour government has also tended to see "upskilling" as a solution to a wide range of problems, from productivity and competitiveness to unemployment and social exclusion. Education and training has therefore been one of the most active areas of government policy, with a raft of new initiatives, showing elements of both continuity and discontinuity with the policies of previous Conservative administrations (UK9906109F).
Given the general consensus around the importance of "upskilling" the workforce, recent research has examined what has happened to the meaning of "skill", as it has come to be defined in UK policy terms over the last 20 years, and the implications this is likely to have for vocational education and training (VET) policy - see "All things to all people: changing perceptions of 'skill' among Britain's policy makers since the 1950s and their implications", J Payne, SKOPE Research Papers, No. 1, August 1999, Oxford and Warwick Universities and "The assessment: knowledge, skills and competitiveness", E Keep and K Mayhew, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, spring 1999.
The broadening meaning of skill
It is increasingly apparent that "skill" now has a much broader meaning than in the past, when it tended to be equated with the manual dexterity and technical "know-how" of the manual craft-worker or the analytical capacity of the scientist or technician. Today, the definition of skill includes those known as "key skills" (see below) and skills of customer care and handling, and is even used by some employers in connection with matters such as "motivation", "enthusiasm" and "stress management". Moreover, some commentators have suggested that in parts of the up-market service sector, such as "trendy" city wine bars, hotels and retail outlets, the demand may even be for "aesthetic labour", with employers looking to recruit people with the right haircut, dress code, demeanour, accent, image and even body shape. Consequently, the notion of skill now includes a range of "soft", interpersonal capabilities that on closer inspection frequently turn out to be forms of behaviour, attitudes, dispositions or personal characteristics, rather than "skills" in the traditional sense.
In part, the meaning of skill has broadened to accommodate the shift taking place towards a predominantly service-based economy. It also reflects new "post-Fordist" forms of work organisation in advanced sectors of high value-added manufacturing. Here, the emphasis is on workers who can solve problems, work in teams and apply knowledge and skill across different contexts. At the same time, policy-makers have had to deal with problems of youth unemployment and have wanted to ensure that young entrants to the labour market have the necessary "personal and social" skills to fit into work and maintain their employability in a changing labour market.
The role of key skills
In contrast to many European countries, the UK has never succeeded in establishing a universal entitlement to a minimum of general education or culture necessary for effective citizenship. Instead, a divided "academic" and "vocational" culture has tended to limit the kind of education offered to vocational students according to assumptions about their ability and its relevance to their future work. Today, core or key skills function essentially as a "gap-filler"; in other words, as an alternative to the general academic subjects taught on many European vocational programmes.
The origins of key skills can be traced to the late 1970s and number of crisis schemes aimed at tackling youth unemployment. Thus, in 1977, the then Labour government introduced the Youth Opportunities Programme (YOP) for unemployed school leavers, a central aim of which was the provision of a range of "social and life skills" needed to gain employment. In the early 1980s, the much-criticised Youth Training Scheme (YTS), identified over 100 "core skills" that could contribute to skills transfer and labour market mobility. Including such elements as "dress correctly", "use appropriate language and behaviour", and "answer the telephone", these were heavily criticised at the time for attempting to work on the habits, behaviour and attitudes of young trainees in order to "fit" them for the role of a pliant and submissive, low-skilled operative.
Today, "key skills" are a central component of the government's strategy for post-compulsory education and training, which comprises:
- a full-time education route with divided "academic" and "vocational" pathways. The former comprises A-, S- and AS-level qualifications, the latter, General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs), National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and some 17,000 traditional vocational qualifications such as BTEC National Diplomas; and
- a government-supported training route, including Youth Training, National Traineeships and Modern Apprenticeships.
According to the Department for Education and Employment, key skills are defined as "generic skills which individuals need in order to be effective members of a flexible, adaptable and competitive workforce". They are already a mandatory component of GNVQs as well as Modern Apprenticeships, while there have also been attempts to integrate them in both A-level studies and some competence-based NVQs. The current government, like its predecessors, is committed to the introduction of key skills units (in "communication", "application of numbers", and "information technology") in all post-16 qualification pathways by means of a single Key Skills qualification, and is working towards the development of other units (on "working with others", "improving own learning and performance" and "problem-solving").
Commentary
The fact that the definition of skill has undergone such a huge transformation over the past two decades is likely to present policy-makers with a host of difficult problems in the context of a UK economy widely held to be on a "low skills" trajectory. First, the skill requirements of "high-performance" sectors of the UK economy (pharmaceuticals, aerospace, software etc) are likely to be very different from parts of the "mass" service sector such as retail, hotels, catering and personal services. In the latter, skill tends to be at the "soft", behavioural end of the spectrum and includes such elements as motivation, customer-handling skills and the ability to carry out prescribed work tasks accurately. In so far as different employers may be looking for different levels and types of skill, policy claims that all sectors of the economy rely on higher levels of skill are essentially meaningless unless it is clear what skills we are really talking about. Second, there is the likelihood of the VET system being pulled in opposing directions as it attempts to cater for the very different demands being made upon it from "high" and "low" skill segments of the economy, with the added danger that it simply settles down to meeting the needs of the bulk of the service sector. Third, the "softer" skill gets, the more it becomes bound up with appropriate forms of behaviour, attitude, personality and, in some cases, even appearance. Is it then appropriate that the VET system should develop in young people attitudes such as "cooperation" and "motivation" in preparation for jobs that may often be low-skilled, poorly designed and subject to traditional forms of management control and direction? Should the VET system set itself the task of transforming the physical appearance, demeanour and presentation of the unemployed? Moreover, many of the these desirable personal characteristics that now come under the label "skills", tend to be linked to notions of traditional "middle-classness" with serious implications for labour market discrimination against certain social groups.
Finally, there remain many unresolved issues in connection with key skills, which continue to straddle very different policy concerns. They have often been presented as contributing to the development of a highly skilled, adaptable, modern workforce, equipped for "lifelong learning", and able to cope with a changing labour market. They have also been seen as offering a common foundation for learning and a potential bridge for unifying the academic and vocational pathways within the UK's qualifications framework for those aged 14-19. Critics have argued that key skills are simply an inadequate substitute in this respect for the "general education" component of vocational courses offered in countries such as France and Germany, and may not even be effective at delivering the minimum basic skills of literacy and numeracy. Moreover, there are also fears that instead of being made compulsory for all learners, key skills learning will become increasingly targeted at "the disaffected" at risk of dropping out of education and training altogether. One example of this is the decision to disapply parts of the national curriculum at "key stage 4" (age 14-16), so as to provide more "suitable" work-related programmes for this group. If so, then key skills, like "life" and "core skills" before them, may once more become a vehicle for socialising young people into work at the lower end of the labour market. (Jonathan Payne, SKOPE)