Skills minister hears how unions and employers work together
Collaborative working between unions and employers on skills development is the way to ensure modern workplaces are geared up for the challenges of the twenty first century. This is the message that Skills Minister David Lammy MP will hear at the first joint conference to be organised between an...
Apprenticeships should be fit for purpose
Despite efforts from Government the take-up of Apprenticeships by large employers remains limited, according to new research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). Victoria Winkler, Learning, Training and Development Adviser, says: "What is clear is that in the right...
Skills for life issue for whole organisation
A new survey report published by unionlearn, reveals the successes of adopting an approach to learning and skills, which involves the whole organisation. This approach enables all those in the workplace to develop their skills whether this is basic literacy and numeracy or at undergraduate...
Soft skills more important than 3Rs
A day after the CBI claimed that employers are having to train school leavers in basic skills the CIPD/KPMG Labour Market Outlook claims that UK employers are having difficulty finding school-leavers with the quality soft skills required to interact with customers. Employers are placing much...
Sound enhances visual training
The use of sound during visual training can enhance later performance on a purely visual task, a finding that demonstrates just how much multisensory interaction occurs in brain areas that before now were thought to be dedicated solely to vision. A report from the British Psychological Society...
Basic education needs are responsibility of Government
Commenting on the Public Accounts Committee report "Employers' perspectives on improving skills for employment', Anthony Thompson, Head of Skills at the CBI, said: "Employers take training and development very seriously and last year alone invested £33bn helping staff adapt to the demands...
UK to host World Skills 2011
The United Kingdom will host the 2011 World Skills competition at ExCel in London. London beat off strong competition from Australia and Sweden to host what was previously known as the skills Olympics. The World Skills Competition symbolises the pinnacle of excellence in vocational training....
Employers perspectives on skills development
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has welcomed the Public Accounts Committee report 'Employers' Perspectives on Improving Skills for Employment'. The report recommends that skills training should not just concentrate on literacy and numeracy but on practical vocational and life skills...
Skills shortages leapfrog transport as biggest issue
A shortage of skilled staff is now the biggest barrier to business in the capital, overtaking transport problems for the first time, the latest CBI/KPMG London Business Survey reveals. Sixty-one per cent of employers are facing skills shortages, a rise from 49 per cent last year, with firms in...
Learn a new language to develop soft skills
The personality of people who are bilingual changes depending on which language they use, lending credence to the Czech proverb “Learn a new language and get a new soul”. That’s according to a report from the British Psychological Society about reserach conducted by Nairan...
Be creative: Don't think about it
Not thinking about a problem for a while doesn’t just give you a fresh perspective when you come back to it. It also allows your more creative unconscious to get to work as it “…ventures out to the dark and dusty nooks and crannies of the mind”, reports the British...
Tailor training to age of the trainee
Figures show people participate less in training programmes as they get older yet over three quarters (77%) of individuals agree that training and career advice will be critical in ensuring older workers continue working effectively past retirement age. Speakers at the Chartered Institute of...
Inadequate training jeopardises success of change projects
The success of organisational change in major organisations is being jeopardised by a failure to put in place adequate training and development measures, according to the 2006 Learning and Development Survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). The survey also...
Collaborative tasks aid memory
Shared experiences mean much of our communication is short-hand according to a report from the British Psycological Society. If I told you the world will never be the same again after 9/11, you would know exactly what I was talking about, even though my statement contained little explicit...
Training Trainers
Improvements in Army training will continue with the establishment in April 2007 of a new Army Training and Recruitment Staff Leadership School (ASLS) in Pirbright, Surrey, Minister for the Armed Forces, Adam Ingram announced today. Under current arrangements leadership training is given at a...
The power of brain storming
So you need some fresh, innovative ideas. What do you do? Get a group of your best thinkers together to bounce ideas of each other…? No, wrong answer. Time and again research, according to the British Psychological Society has shown that people think of more new ideas on their own than...
Learning Stars
The millions of individuals currently involved in learning and skills in England can today publicly recognise those who inspire and encourage them to succeed, as nominations for the 2006 STAR Awards open. The STAR Awards celebrates the work of the truly outstanding individuals and support teams...
Green Light for learning
The Northern TUC has announce that, following a fourth successful year of Learning for All Fund projects, we have secured funding from One NorthEast and the Learning and Skills Council to continue the Fund for 2006/07. With the green light firmly on go, the next LfAF bidding round has been set...
1.5million learners gain qualifications
Over 1.5 million people have gained crucial basic skills qualifications through the Government's Skills for Life strategy, hitting a key target set back in 2001, Skills Minister Phil Hope announced today. Skills for Life provides free literacy, language and numeracy tuition for adults in England...
Don't waste talents of local workforce
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alan Johnson has spoken about the social and economic benefits of tapping into the skills and talents of the region's refugee workforce. Addressing more than a hundred employers, and delegates from the public and voluntary sectors at a conference hosted...
Doing affects the way you see
Training to perform certain movements, even blindfolded, affects our subsequent ability to perceive those same movements when performed by others. That’s according to a report published by the British Psychological Society about research conducted by Antonino Casile and Martin Giese at the...
Basic skills research findings
New research published by the Department for Work and Pensions interim findings from the evaluation of the basic skills national enhancements and the mandatory training pilots. The National Enhancements to the basic skills process started in April 2004. They include use of the fast-track...
Construction centre helps build skills
Lords Housing Minister Baroness Andrews officially opened the Milton Keynes College Construction Centre at Kiln Farm. The college was established to address a shortage of construction skills in the Milton Keynes area, and will play an important part in the delivery of new housing and...
Time of day affects learning
The British Psychological Society says that if you are learning a skill such as playing the piano, you have to master the fact-based aspect (the sequence of notes) and also the movement-related aspect (moving your fingers in the correct way on the keys). Both aspects improve during practice, but...
London aims to host 2011 World Skills competition
In a move which parallels London's successful bid to host the 2012 Olympics, UK Skills has today announced that it has a green light to submit a bid in March to host the 2011 WorldSkills Competition. The Government has confirmed its support by pledging £11 million - half the £22...
Staff training creates better business results!
A report by the National Audit Office, entitled 'Employers' perspectives on improving skills for employment' has produced findings that the vast majority of UK businesses cannot ignore. Key headlines and recommendations in the report include: An overall recommendation that UK businesses...
The Leitch review of skills in the UK
Lord Leitch, publishing his interim report, said: "Skills present a formidable challenge and a brilliant opportunity. They matter fundamentally for the economic and social health of the UK. Despite recent improvement, there is consensus that we need to be much more ambitious and a clear message...
New team members spark creativity
Apparently, substituting a team-member for a newcomer can help increase group creativity. That's according to Hoon-Seok Choi at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea and Leigh Thompson at Northwestern University, USA. They compared the creativity of 33 three-person groups across two tasks....
New help for those who lack mental capacity
Health minister Rosie Winterton has announced the seven organisations that have been chosen to pilot the new Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA) role. From January 2006, pilot IMCA advocates will provide a service to people without capacity, who have no families or friends to support...
Financial education is key to retirement planning
Europe must ensure that people have access to financial education and information so they can make confident choices about their retirement said Stephen Timms, Minister for Pension Reform at an EU Presidency meeting in Brussels. With at least three million people in the UK not saving enough it...