I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the Government’s initial response to “Education Working for All! Commission for Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce Final Report”, which Sir Ian Wood presented to me earlier this month. I fully welcome the report, and I share without exception its ambitions for young people, employment and prosperity in Scotland.
I know that we all support the positive vision for Scotland’s young people that is evident throughout the report. I record my thanks to Sir Ian and the commission, and to all the people who contributed to their work, for presenting such insightful, pragmatic and clear recommendations.
When we asked Sir Ian to lead the work some 18 months ago, the Government was anticipating the need to address youth unemployment in the context of a more positive economic outlook. We presented the commission with an extremely challenging remit in asking it to explore how we might develop a modern, responsive and valued vocational training system, and how we might emulate the labour markets of the best-performing European countries.
In recognising the need to make most effective use possible of the skills of all our young women and men, I asked the commission to consider in particular how all young people could benefit from education and employment regardless of gender, ethnicity, or disability.
I was delighted to receive the report and its 39 recommendations, which represent a coherent, practical and powerful set of ideas about what more needs to be done to align our education system firmly, and for the long term, with the needs of the economy. The report’s treatise for further change and improvement is inarguable in my view, which is why we are embarking on a campaign to develop Scotland’s young workforce, taking the report’s recommendations as our starting point.
Our ambitions for economic growth will not be realised without higher levels of employment among young people. We acknowledge the scale of our ambitions and the radical reduction that is required if we are to reduce the rate of youth unemployment to among the lowest in Europe, so the Scottish Government’s goal is to reduce youth unemployment in Scotland by 40 per cent by 2020. Today I will set out what the Government will do to take immediate action on the young workforce and to work towards that goal. I will return later to the role of our partners.
As Sir Ian Wood said, developing the young workforce demands a culture change from all parts of the education and training system, and from employers, young people and those who influence them in the medium term. We have a world-class higher education system in Scotland; our young people deserve a vocational education offer of the same quality and value. The report recognises that the Government’s education, training and employment policies and programmes, including curriculum for excellence, college reform, and employer support measures, have established the right platform on which to create a world-class vocational education system that is valued by, and valuable to, our young people.
As the commission’s final report says:
“The introduction of Curriculum for Excellence in primary schools and in S1-S3 is already making a difference as a new approach to teaching and learning is helping pupils to develop many of the skills and attributes they will need to be successful in their working lives.”
Of course, there is more that we can and will do to act on the report now.
A key feature of a world-leading vocational education system is that it is shaped by employers and meets the needs of industry. I can announce today that I will make an initial £1 million available for the establishment of industry-led invest in young people groups, which will make the crucial links between employers and education that will, in turn, improve opportunities for young people. We will work with local authorities and other partners to develop those groups.
Strong and committed employer leadership will be the key to successful implementation. To achieve that, we will seek to work with a number of established groups, including those in Glasgow, Renfrewshire and Edinburgh that the commission highlighted. In the parts of the country where such groups do not already exist, we will work with local employers to support the establishment of new groups, in partnership with existing organisations and service providers.
I fully agree with the report’s recommendation that employers should be publicly recognised for the contribution that they make to developing Scotland’s young workforce. The Government is working with Investors in People to develop an investors in young people award, which I expect to be in place soon.
I turn to how we will further develop training opportunities for Scotland’s young women and men. Our modern apprenticeship programme stands out as an exemplar of an employment-based vocational training offer, and I want it to expand, flex and focus to help us to achieve even more for our economy and for all our young men and women.
This Government has committed to creating more MA opportunities by expanding the programme to 30,000 starts a year by 2020. Today, I announce further improvements to the modern apprenticeships programme, building on the recommendations from the commission’s report.
As we work with Skills Development Scotland to implement our expansion plans, we will deliver the report’s recommendations on modern apprenticeships, which will include offering more higher level MAs, and developing pilots for advanced apprenticeships, including to graduate level, thereby encouraging more MAs in the crucial science, technology, engineering and maths subjects.
I will also look to SDS to begin pilots for foundation apprenticeships. That will see SDS work closely with schools and colleges to develop more structured pathways from the senior phase of schools, where young people will be able to combine their general education with elements of work-based learning. Foundation apprenticeships will provide a practical grounding that will help to prepare young people for future apprenticeships, employment or further study.
I am pleased to announce that, in August, the first pilot of a foundation apprenticeship will begin in partnership with Fife College for school pupils who are taking engineering. That is an exciting development and one which will see the principles that are set out in the commission’s report made real for a number of young people in the coming months.
The campaign to develop Scotland’s young workforce is also a hearts-and-minds campaign to transform the view of what vocational education offers in terms of engaging learning and desirable employment prospects. Young people and the people who guide them should have access to high quality and current advice about the labour market and routes into that market. Better careers guidance tools will, in line with the report’s recommendations, be developed to inform young people and their parents about future labour market opportunities and the skills that they will need.
SDS will work with Education Scotland, local authorities, the unions and, importantly, employers, to develop services that will be designed to inspire and challenge young people’s career aspirations, informed by labour market intelligence.
The final area that I will address is equality. I was keen that the commission’s work should explore, in depth, problems around access to vocational opportunities. The report delivers that with an ambitious set of recommendations, which have been widely welcomed by a number of equalities groups.
Everyone in the chamber should acknowledge the disappointing figures on equalities that are contained in the commission’s report. Despite making significant progress in increasing the proportion of women who have benefited from the MA programme from 27 to 41 per cent, it is clear that tackling occupational segregation must remain a vital priority.
The report recognises the difficulty in changing the perceptions and culture that can drive the behaviours of young people and employers. In order to make progress, we must develop coherent approaches that look at all stages of the pathways to work.
Across the approaches, I have asked to see renewed focus on the needs of different groups of young people—in particular those who face the greatest disadvantage and barriers to good training and work. We will work quickly with Skills Development Scotland and the expert groups to develop action plans that will build on the good work that is under way.
I expect SDS to lead work to improve opportunities for the groups that are underrepresented on the MA programme. That will include encouraging young women and men to consider career options in non-traditional sectors, and supporting careers coaches, parents, carers and teachers in challenging and breaking down gender and cultural stereotypes.
It is important that Skills Development Scotland develop specific plans to address the gender balance in certain frameworks, and to increase participation by minority ethnic young people, young people with disabilities and care leavers. The action plans will help to ensure that all young people can secure real and lasting equality of opportunity.
In very large part, achieving our ambitions for young people is about focusing our existing resources in the most effective way. However, to kick start this important activity, I am allocating an additional £3 million to Skills Development Scotland to progress the work on modern apprenticeships, careers and equalities with immediate effect. Education Scotland will also receive an additional £500,000 to support action on developing the young workforce.
On the basis of those early actions, this Government will lead a concerted effort, jointly with local government, to develop Scotland’s young workforce. As ever, early intervention is crucial. That means action that is very often focused on young people who are still in the school system. Consequently, the development of Scotland’s young workforce will be a joint endeavour between us and partners in local government.
Many partners are involved in acting on the report’s recommendations—in particular, local government; the Government will work in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities over the coming weeks to plan for implementation. Together, we will develop detailed plans over the summer, which we will publish in the autumn, as we proceed to develop our 2015-16 budget plans. We have already made it clear that the resource implications of that effort will be taken into consideration in the development of our budget, and I look forward to sharing those developments with Parliament over the coming months.