Yesterday the TES website ran a story about the continuing poor performance of the UK as regards apprenticeship provision and literacy and numeracy skills. These findings were drawn from the latest issue of the OECD’s biennial survey, Society at a Glance, which ranks OECD countries on a wide range of economic and social indicators. This latest edition of the OECD survey has a spotlight on youth unemployment and in particular those young people defined as “NEET” (i.e. not in employment, education or training). 

Across the piece the OECD analysis highlights a number of disturbing youth employment trends since the 2008 recession hit. For example, 1 out every 10 jobs held by workers under the age of 30 in OECD countries were destroyed between 2007 and 2014 and three countries – Spain, Greece and Ireland – were particularly hard hit with youth employment halving over this period.

According to the analysis, skills and qualifications were a crucial factor in youth unemployment trends. The OECD emphasises that “young people with low levels of educational attainment (below upper-secondary) were most vulnerable during the economic crisis and have continued to be during the slow recovery … [and] they are also at the highest risk of long-term scarring effects.” 

There are two additional aspects of the skills picture that are attributed with importance – the impact of poor literacy and numeracy skills among the youth population and the degree to which there is access to high quality vocational education, especially apprenticeships. According to the OECD analysis the UK  performs relatively poorly in both these areas.

The statistics on literacy and numeracy are old news as they come from a 2012 OECD survey (see footnote), but it is worth repeating the main findings:

• the UK came third from bottom out of 22 countries on the measure of 16-29 year-olds with poor literacy skills, at 18%
• the UK also came third from bottom out of 22 countries on the measure of 16-29 year-olds with poor numeracy skills, at 25.4%
• while these statistics are bad enough, there was a double whammy operating for the UK as it also bucked the general trend of skills levels improving across generations. In the case of literacy and numeracy skills the opposite trend occurred in the UK, i.e., a higher proportion of young adults (aged 16-29) had lower attainment levels in English and maths than the older generation (aged 30-54).

When it comes to apprenticeships the OECD identifies a causal link between a relatively high incidence of access to quality apprenticeships (e.g. in countries like Germany) and better youth employment rates in the aftermath of the recession. 

The OECD also uses the same source of data (see footnote) used for the literacy and numeracy league tables above in order to gauge how many young people and young adults were engaged in apprenticeships in each country. As can be seen in the chart below, the estimates show that less than 2% of people aged 16-29 in the UK said they were engaged in an apprenticeship compared to much higher rates in other countries.

Of course it is true that the statistics on which this analysis are based are somewhat out of date and that there has been an increase in the number of young people starting on an apprenticeship in the UK since 2012. However, whilst this may have led to some small degree of improvement in the UK’s position in the above chart, it would not have shifted the UK out of the low-to-mid range ranking that it occupies in this particular league table.

The chart also highlights that those countries with an international reputation for high quality apprenticeships (e.g. Austria, Germany and Denmark) are the very same ones where a large proportion of young people pursue this post-school route and the majority of employers provide apprenticeships. The UK apprenticeship system is still plagued with low-quality provision and this sends the wrong message. It is therefore crucial that overall quality is improved, lifting the reputation of apprenticeships, so that everyone – young people, parents, employers and providers – see apprenticeships as a worthwhile, viable alternative to higher education.

Unionlearn supports a number of government policies that are addressing aspects of the skills deficits identified in the OECD analysis, including the introduction of the apprenticeship levy next year and the continuation of full funding for adults to attain a level 2 qualification in English and maths. The challenge is translating these policy measures into reality by significantly driving up the number of employers introducing and/or expanding high quality apprenticeship programmes and opening up opportunities for employees, young and old alike, to improve their competency in English and maths.

Unionlearn is currently engaged in a number of projects designed to build the union role in support of high quality apprenticeships and flexible English and maths provision at work. A series of regional events are currently being rolled out that provide practical sessions on supporting union reps to negotiate with employers and support learners on these two specific skills agendas. Next week unionlearn will also be launching a new campaign - Maths Workout Week – which will be providing a range of ideas on how union learning reps can support more employees to access maths skills in the workplace.

It should be noted that the OECD statistics on the UK relating to literacy and numeracy and access to apprenticeships are drawn from the OECD Adult Skills Survey (PIAAC) undertaken in 2012. Scotland and Wales did not participate in this survey so the data for the UK is in effect based on the survey responses from England and Northern Ireland.