Informed Scotland October 2018 – Skills: untapped, mismatched & ‘meta’
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October was a busy month for meaty, fascinating reports on a range of learning & skills themes.
Word of the month was ‘meta-skills’ – or should that be ‘meta skills’ or ‘metaskills’? Spelling isn’t the main bone of contention here, so it’s good to see that defining these higher-order skills is an action in the Enterprise & Skills Strategic Board’s Strategic Plan, published last month. (Anyone else reminded of extensive debates about the definition of core/key skills…?)
As well as the usual annual studies, evaluations, outcome agreements and statistics, other reports worth exploring in detail include:
- a CIPD study of skills utilisation and the ‘untapped potential of UK skills’
- a series of reports by Universities UK on flexible and part-time learning in higher education
- #SQAfutures, recommendations for the SQA from a Young Scot-supported panel of 16–18 year-olds, on the future of assessments
- Harnessing Educational Research by British Academy and Royal Society, examining the current state of research into school education
- a debate-provoking paper on languages teaching in schools by Reform Scotland
- a UPP Foundation exploration of the concept of the ‘civic university’, highlighting the decline in the focus on adult education
- OECD’s Seven Questions about Apprenticeships international study into how to design and implement high-quality apprenticeships.
Among several developments, a new Skills & Employability Leadership Group is being set up by SCDI, chaired by Skills Development Scotland, and a new Scottish Government Learner Panel of 30 young people will help to shape educational policy and practice. There’s a new Men in Childcare Challenge Fund, aiming to increase the number of men in early learning & childcare; a new SQA Mental Health & Wellbeing Award; and YouthLink Scotland is launching a new Youth Work & Schools partnership programme.
This is the tip of the information iceberg: become an Informed Scotland subscriber so you can keep on top of all the developments. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.
Check out our latest guest blog post, Powerful professional learning by Sarah Philp, Director of Learning Scotland for Osiris Educational.