Section 1 - Substantive Policy Lessons
1.3 Routes and Attitudes to Work
Regeneration agencies have been providing assistance to projects to ease the transition to work for far longer than any other kind of learning intervention. School-industry links were central to Compacts during the 1980s and remain at the heart of Education-Business Partnerships (EBP). The case for structured school-industry links is as strong as ever, and the frequency with which they appear in SRB strategies suggests that there are still insufficient resources to fund adequate levels of activity (or perhaps, adequate activities) from mainstream resources. It is therefore unsurprising that many of the projects in this sample tread familiar ground.
Evidence
This theme is represented by a fairly disparate range of projects.
- Adur Industry First's Education to Industry project was designed to: (i) make teachers aware of the needs of employers in the Adur district; (ii) identify local skill shortages and work with schools to meet the shortages; (iii) to make local employers aware of the possibilities within the curriculum; and (iv) to enhance the image of manufacturing in the eyes of their pupils and their parents.
- Speke Garston's School Business Links: provides a relatively conventional range of school-industry activities but uses SRB resources to extend the activities to primary schools.
- The Education Business Partnership in Coventry and Warwickshire is an extension of standard EBP activities that pre-date the SRB. One interesting feature is the operation of a series of 'Partnership Centres' based in major local companies and providing a resource centre for schools.
- Bristol's Northern Arc Regeneration Scheme: Two linked projects are designed to enhance the employment prospects, education and skills of local people - particularly the young and those at disadvantage - and to promote equality of opportunity by:
- offering professional, informed and independent education, training and careers guidance (particularly for those who are unemployed and the low waged);
- referrals to other support; and
- providing accredited guidance skills training within the area.
The two activities reviewed for the study are the Guidance Project and the Employment Project. The first provides a relatively standard set of guidance activities but reflects an interesting rationale developed by Learning Partnership West (which leads the project).
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Observations
Rationale for the Northern Arc Community Based Guidance Service
The development of the project was informed by three sets of observations. Partner organisations identified that more guidance staff were needed to meet the needs of residents. Additional guidance would help support other activities in the area, such as the Youth Start mentoring project and community education provision. Many individuals already working in the community in a variety of capacities (including as volunteers) are already fulfilling a guidance role, but without training or accreditation.
The second project resembles the Joblink and Jobsmatch projects initiated by Task Forces in the 1980s and continued under City Challenge. The Employment Project is designed to '…provide a link between unemployed people with skills and employers with job vacancies and, by using customised and existing training provision, equip people for the jobs which are available'. Although based at a Job Centre, the brokerage is delivered through outreach workers and drop-in centres based in the community. The scheme originated to promote the use of local labour in the construction industry, but then broadened its focus.
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Key Lessons
A variety of good practice elements emerge from these schemes, some of which are reflected in recent or emerging main programmes like New Deal.
- In many areas the endemic nature of unemployment in households and communities constitutes a barrier both to pursuing employment and placing any value on learning.
- Work experience, work shadowing and a structured approach to school-work transitions can have a positive impact.
- The concentration of unemployment, low skills and qualifications that characterises many of the areas on which the SRB is focused, often leads to 'postcode discrimination'. Involving employers in school-industry programmes helps overcome mutual suspicions.
- The prospect of work - that is, a specific, identified vacancy - has been shown in numerous Joblink or Jobsmatch schemes to be a powerful motivator for learning. The kind of customised programmes of training being developed directly with employers by Northern Arc offer further confirmation of this proposition.
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