Search Results

This paper focuses on how generic skills can be developed to enable young adults to best utilise them in making transitions into the labour market. Drawing on the literature and a Commercial Education Trust study of practices which encourage employer engagement in skills development, it is argued that 'putting skills to work' is not automatic or unproblematic. It is not simply a matter of 'skills transfer', but a 'continuous, contextually-embedded and transformative process' during which individuals, supported by partners, learn how to recontextualise skills to suit different activities and environments. It may be tempting to distil employability into a list of so-called 'soft skills', but context matters. It requires more than that which can be taught in Education. Support is needed in the workplace through mentoring, for example, to help recruits acquire knowledge of workplace culture, norms and practices, situational understanding, and apply metacognitive strategies for bringing together this knowledge and a range of different skills and personal attributes in productive application. Further research is needed to explore the inter-relationships between skills supply, demand and utilisation, including ways in which employers can better recognise young recruits' skills and provide 'expansive' working environments that maximise their capabilities and potential for development.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

The Skills Builder Universal Framework and the wide partnership of organisations adopting it provide a new opportunity: to focus and consolidate the evidence base around essential skills - both why they matter, and how they can be most effectively built. There are plenty of reports which emphasise the importance of building essential skills in light of structural changes in the labour market, including technological disruptions and changing work norms. But what is less available is a wide range of experimental, quasi-experimental, and high-quality qualitative research to investigate the links between essential skills development and education, employment and social outcomes. The Skills Builder Partnership have developed a research strategy to build that evidence base. They will be using different methodologies to make a compelling case for developing essential skills by reviewing the current evidence and then conducting further primary and secondary research. This rapid evidence review is a first step in evaluating the current evidence on the outcomes of essential skills development, the ways it is measured, and the underpinning theoretical frameworks, using the language of the Skills Builder Universal Framework.

Excerpt from publication. Show less