Skills That Work For Wales

Skills that Work for Wales

Two much anticipated documents for the FE sector were released by the Welsh Assembly Government last month:

Skills that work for Wales: a skills and employment strategy and action plan

and

Skills that work for Wales: Response to a consultation on the Skills and Employment Strategy

The strategy builds on the consultation published in January 2008 and The Learning Country: Vision into Action.  It also draws on the analysis of Lord Leitch’s review of skills in the UK and Sir Adrian Webb’s review “Promise and Performance”.

I haven’t read the documents yet but some of the key points which have been pointed out to me are:

DCELLS will be contacting local authorities, providers and other partners to discuss ‘the transformation of learning provision in their area’ and seeking proposals by the end of December (para 10.17). It points out that ‘we accept the evidence that fewer, larger institutions could offer benefits to learners and better value for money. However we recognise that there are different circumstances in different parts of Wales and no ‘gold standards’ for provider size’ can be applied, especially in rural areas and for Welsh medium schools’ (para 10.15).

This transformation will deal with learners from the age of 11 onwards. ‘We expect this to result in more partnerships between providers, more HE and FE mergers; fewer but better resourced secondary schools and more tertiary arrangements’ (para 10.16). 

The report rejects the 14-19 commissioning consortia set out in Webb ‘though they may work in specific circumstances’ (para 10.19).

Set up a new Centre for Excellence in Leadership and Management Skills in Wales, subject to European funding, by 2009 [para 7.18]

Develop foundation degrees (para 8.18) 

Roll out the Quality and Effectiveness Framework (para 10.06) and ensure that all providers achieve good or outstanding grades in  inspections (para 10.07)

Both documents can be downloaded here from the WAG website.