Understanding Government Led Skills Development Initiatives - Book Report/Review Example

Understanding Government Led Skills Development Initiatives Abstract Human resource has been the most valuable asset upon which the entire economy depends. Development of human resource appropriately through providing training of specific skills may deeply impact the public as well as private sector. The role of government is very essential in this regard in current times. Benefit of such competence development is very deep in both public as well as private sector like economic growth, public policy formulation and many others. The UK govt has taken certain measures through the agencies to attain the required results which have proven to be fruitful. Introduction Human resource is the most valuable asset of a nation or a country. That’s why different organisations as well as governments endeavour to train and develop their human resource so as to meet the needs of contemporary times and to overcome the dearth of skilled manpower in variety of growing sectors of the modern economy. Lacking skilled human resource, results in sluggish economic growth and development of the country. Therefore in order to overcome the hurdles of economic growth as well as to sustain the pace with rapidly changing world, humans must be trained to sharpen their skills to suit the organisational and industrial needs (UKCES, 2014). This report will analyse and assess the impact and the attempt of UK government to develop certain skills in the people of country through training and development. Role of Government in Training and Development Private sector has historically played vital role in developing the required skills in manpower of an economy. Such skill development dominates in most sectors of the UK economy but such traditional approach does not enable the workforce to add new skills according to the economic and growing needs. The initiative of a government in this regard may help to closely assess and monitor the accurate skill needs and appropriate measures at macro level may be taken to leave high impact over the areas of economy. Frequent change in technology and globalisation requires continuous and lifelong learning, hence active participation and appropriate intervention of government may appear fruitful in meeting the challenges and to stay strategically competent with the globe (Change Role Govt, 2014). The government plays its role to train and develop as follows: Education Government may significantly play its role to train and develop the human resource through formal education. Vocational and technical training institutions may be set up in order to meet the shortage of specific skills in a sector. This also helps to generate quality workforce for the industries (UKCES, 2014). Public / Private Collaboration In many countries like France and Germany, public / private collaboration results in generating effective workforce when enterprises and vocational training centres jointly initiate such apprenticeship and on-job training programs to fulfil the demand of short skills (Competency Development Framework, 2014). Market Driven Training This is the most modern form of training and development in which private sector is solely responsible for provision of training and development of employees while the government establishes overall framework and attempt to motivate and such an effort is localised industry and sector wise which is most fruitful in recovering the training cost in long term (Change Role Govt, 2014). Impact of Competency Development on Public / Private Sector Performance improvement has ever remained the core issue for private sector and thus the private sector strategically endeavours to overcome the performance challenges through training and development which has an impact over public as well as private sector. Following are the major impacts observed because of competency development: Market System Both public and private sector develop their distinct roles in the market system to balance the human resource need as well as growth of the sector (UKCES, 2014). Institutional Economics Such competence movement enables the roles of institutions to vitally reduce the unemployment, poverty and other economic issues through skill development (Competency Development Framework, 2014). Public Policy Formulation Such a development may also enable the governments to significantly formulate the public policies and regulations to promote manpower and industries (UKCES, 2014). Economic Growth Competence development impacts the economic growth of a country as well because it helps in adding revenues and curtailing poverty (Competency Development Framework, 2014). Infrastructure Research and development and educational infrastructure also grow because of competence development (UKCES, 2014). Emirates Group The company removes overlapping and enhances productivity and innovation level of the employees through skill development and creating self sufficiency. It has technical and management academic and professional training programs to acquire the required set of skills (Performance Development – Emirates Group). Contribution of UK Government Initiative The UK government has identified the needs of skills shortage and demand and endeavoured to overcome the economic problems like stagnant growth, poverty, infrastructure, etc through certain measures to develop the human resource. Following initiatives of the government have contributed significantly towards human resource development: Skill Funding Agency Skill Funding Agency collaborates with enterprises to train people and generate job opportunities for them. UK govt has generated 20,000 jobs through the agency by National Apprenticeship Week and the agency has also initiated employer led apprenticeship to increase the number of trainees (Skills Funding Agency, 2014). Sector Skills Council The UK government took a strong initiative to launch this agency in order to fulfil the specifically narrowed down needs of the various sectors and their cross management. This has resulted in creating further innovation and raising the skill level of employees of the sectors as per their needs (Sector Skills Councils, 2014). National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) The govt has taken initiative to train the people through work based learning and for the purpose it has employed NVQ program which provides practical training to the people who need to acquire certain skills to make their place in the job market (NVQ, 2014). Conclusion Consequently, with the fast moving world, changing technology and globalisation, every economy, sector and industry needs to stay updated to survive and for the purpose govt needs to initiate certain programs which may result in creating a well trained and skilful workforce along with strategic growth in the economy and development of private sector. The UK govt has taken adequate measures to overcome the issue of skills shortage and to develop human resource but still further steps are required to be taken to fully optimise the potential of UK economy. References Competency Development Framework 2014. . [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/214100/technical-competencies-private-sector-dev.pdf. [Accessed 17 March 2014]. Change Role Gov vet. 2014. change role gov vet. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/tve/nseoul/docse/rcrolgve.html. [Accessed 17 March 2014]. Lifelong Learning Sector SECTOR QUALIFICATIONS STRATEGY - UKCES 2014 [ONLINE] Available at: www.ukces.org.uk/upload/pdf/LLUK%20SQS_edit.pdf‎ [Accessed 17 March 2014]. NVQ (NQF) | Qualifications : Pearson Work Based Learning. 2014. NVQ (NQF) | Qualifications : Pearson Work Based Learning. [ONLINE] Available at: http://pearsonwbl.edexcel.com/QUALS/NVQ/Pages/default.aspx. [Accessed 17 March 2014]. Performance Development | Corporate Services | Explore Our Careers | Emirates Group Careers Centre. 2014. Performance Development | Corporate Services | Explore Our Careers | Emirates Group Careers Centre. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.emiratesgroupcareers.com/english/Careers_Overview/corp_services/Performance.aspx. [Accessed 17 March 2014]. Sector Skills Councils - govt.uk 2014 [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.ukces.org.uk/ourwork/sector-skills-councils Skills Funding Agency - GOV.UK. 2014. Skills Funding Agency - GOV.UK. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/skills-funding-agency. [Accessed 17 March 2014]. Read More