“Skills drive the economy and are vital for our country to invest in now and in the future.”
In the spring of 2019, City & Guilds and Â鶹´«Ã½AV agreed to carry out joint research and prepare a discussion paper. This was to cover the skills gap facing the UK economy over the next five years and how we might build upon the Westminster government’s reforms of the last six years, to establish a single, simple, integrated, agile and economy-led technical and skills development system (or ‘TVET system’, as it is called internationally).
Our detailed research paper is titled, ‘Close the Gap, proposing a map for Technical & Skills Education to 2024 and beyond’.
To enable a wider audience to engage with our suggestions, we have written this a short summary paper 'Close the Gap, the roadmap for technical and vocational skills' which we trust will start a serious debate on how we shift thinking on skills development to avoid the cyclical policy failures of the last few decades.
We also think that, as a country, we must buy into the fact that education and skills are not exactly the same thing. Whilst education can enrich lives in a wider sense, it is skills that drive a productive and prosperous economy.