UKCES

Simply providing learners with “food labelling” style information about courses could free up more money for front-line learning, according to a report by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills published today.

The report, “Skills, Jobs, Growth,” says that providing learners with information which is easy to understand and compare is the key to making both FE and HE provision higher quality, less bureaucratic, and more responsive to employer needs.

The report, and the recommendations it contains, comes at a key time for the government, which is preparing to publish its own white paper on post-16 education and training later in the year.

Under the proposals, all colleges would provide prospective learners with key information before they take a course.  The information would be presented as a simple diagram, rather like the now-familiar food labels, and would contain data such as completion rates, customer satisfaction and job prospects for the course in question.  There would also be more information available about how the institution as a whole is meeting the needs of the local community and employers as well as students.

Chris Humphries, Chief Executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, explained:

“We’ve become used to having clear choices in many aspects of our everyday lives – anyone who shops online has used sites like ebay or insurance comparison websites to make sure they get the best deal.  Yet at the moment, vital statistics about education and training are either not available to the learner or are not easy to compare across courses and institutions.  Instead, there’s a complicated raft of organisations and quangos involved in planning what they think should be delivered.  We believe that this job could be done better and more cheaply simply by making the system we already have more transparent and responsive.

“By giving learners more information about the courses they are considering, they will be able to make a more informed choice, with better outcomes all round.  For example, they may see that graduates from one college or university stand a much better chance of getting a job in the field they’re interested in than those from another, even though the courses seem superficially similar.  By being more transparent, we would see the system slowly reforming itself, with good courses prospering and poor ones being forced to make rapid improvements or wither on the vine.  Whole swathes of bureaucracy involved in the planning of training could be reduced.   Publishing these key pieces of information means that courses which are most shaped around employer needs will fare well, learners will be put in the driving seat and the country as a whole will benefit from higher-quality provision as more money will be available at the front line.”

Ends

Notes to editors: 

Examples of the way the information may be provided is given below:

This proposal is one of nine made in the UK Commission’s report:  “Towards Ambition 2020; Skills, Jobs, Growth”.  Copies are available to download in the Publications section of the website.

About the UK Commission for Employment and Skills

The remit of the UK Commission is to provide vigorous and independent challenge, advising government at the highest levels across the UK on employment and skills strategy, targets, policies and progress towards challenging competitiveness goals, including the vision of an 80% employment rate by 2020.  It has been asked by the government to report on crucial issues, such as the employability skills employers need for future economic success, how UK employers can use skills to become more globally competitive, and whether further institutional change is required to deliver better integrated employment and skills services.  

Further information from Alex Curling, Head of Press, 01709 774890