student protests, tuition fees, apprenticeships

Since then we’ve seen sit-ins, prolonged demonstrations and even an attack on the future King costing millions in disruption and damage in the build up to and aftermath of yesterday’s vote on tuition fees. Many of the protestors aren’t even in higher education and some of these ‘students’ were even protesting at the ‘Goverment’… or at least that’s what one banner said!

Politics is clouding the real issue here and when the politicians were making their pre-election promises few of them expected Government to end up being a compromise. Well it is and with compromise comes give and take, not everyone can have their own way and things change.

It’s the Taxpayer who’s been heavily subsidising higher education for a long time and for what in return? It’s become too easy for some people to go to University, but what’s the point? Often it’s education for education’s sake…don’t get me wrong, the economy (and my own company) needs graduates and the skills they bring, but we also need other skills.

One very prominent and respected local businessman recently told me that his degree was a waste of time, how he wasn’t challenged and that his subsequent professional qualification was much harder to obtain… it meant so much more. How many students of today or tomorrow will arrive at that same conclusion in a few years time…only with larger debts?

There’s also a supply and demand issue here in that if students think they’ll get a return on their investment as a result of the degree course helping them to secure a good job, then the fees are less of an issue. This in turn forces the Universities to consider what courses they offer – just what is the point of some of these courses and how many Media Studies graduates do we need anyway?

The recent Oxfordshire Employer Skills survey of 1200 businesses found that 20% of the firms said that there is a skills gap locally and guess what, it isn’t graduates that they need, it’s a well trained skilled workforce that will enable us to compete globally as we emerge from recession.

Personally I wasn’t very academic, but I mustered a few O Levels and I was lucky enough to get offered three apprenticeships. I ended up doing my electrical engineering training at Didcot Power Station for four years and it was brilliant, especially as I was learning and earning at the same time.

Things have changed a lot now and most of those time-served apprenticeships have disappeared in favour of modular training. I reckon it was year 3 before I made a meaningful contribution at Didcot to justify my existence and pay packet.

One thing’s for sure, if we’d protested on the top of buildings as apprentices we would’ve been out on our ears – I will never forget being instructed to cross the Miners picket line, it was character building, as was having to climb the chimney or cleaning tools, equipment and cars (yes cars!).

Today’s employers, large and small, are much more specific about their requirements and they’re looking for a commercial return on their training investment. At a recent Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership gathering I was talking to Jurgen Hedrich, Managing Director of the BMW Plant at Cowley, and Jurgen was talking in terms of training hundreds of mature apprentices each year to meet the skills shortage at BMW and their suppliers.

In my own sector BT, who had previously cut their workforce dramatically, have recently started recruiting Oxford based apprentices for a 3 year scheme and one of the key criteria is that candidates should be in possession of a full and clean driving licence. Make no mistake, these guys will soon be wizzing around in their Openreach vans making a contribution.

But BMW and BT are only one part of the story and much of the growth in Oxfordshire is being driven by smaller businesses, many of whom have already started investing again in readiness for growth. In many ways these businesses need to see a quicker return on their training investment than the larger employers but the quid pro quo is faster progression through the ranks as the company grows. This is good for the company, the individual and the economy – a win, win, win.

This triple win is both relevant and poignant as there are plenty of examples throughout Oxfordshire of ‘business leaders’ who started out with vocational training. I continued my education for a couple of years after I finished my apprenticeship, at least to a point where I had both a decent set of qualifications and an absolute understanding of what was expected of me in the workplace and as part of the workforce.

At the same Local Enterprise Partnership meeting last week were Oxford & Cherwell Valley College - Oxpens to me and you - struggling to be heard at the back of the room. Wow, what a transformation, talk about changing with the times – OCVC is the real deal offering appropriate training for the jobs available in the area.

I’m sure I’ll be about as popular as Julian Assange on a sight-seeing tour of Washington. Students and their parents will all be claiming they have a ‘right’ to higher education and that changes to tuition fees will hinder social mobility etc etc.. But the fact of the matter is that our investment in education and training has to be balanced, affordable and in tune with our economic needs – and at the moment it’s not.

Having won the bid for Local Enterprise Partnership status, in my view this ‘business led initiative’ should look immediately at how it can really help local businesses get the skilled workforce that is so desperately needed. These businesses don’t need to be told how to grow or where to find customers - this is already happening - but they do need good people and this is where the LEP can help.

Now, where’s my tin hat!

Brendon

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