Employers are frustrated that young people emerging from education don’t have the skills they are looking for. Young people emerging from education are keen to work but can’t get jobs because they don’t have the skills employers are looking for. A classic Catch 22 conundrum – how do we fix this?
Last month the IET published a skills survey that was launched at a joint event with Student Energy, who were presenting a report of their own on young people entering the energy transition labour market. The lively debate that took place is available to view. The organisations spoke respectively to employers and students both groups expressing a clear desire for more and better training to help bridge the gap between formal education and employment, and for career progression into new roles or to cover new responsibilities.
Apprenticeships, graduate programmes, and internships are a great way to receive practical training, but these programmes are only available to a minority, and often those working for larger organisation.
How do we find different ways to bridge this gap? Could accessible online learning be an acceptable alternative that employers would consider? Perhaps young engineers already have the skills, but they are not presenting them in the right way because they don’t know how?
If engineers can’t find a solution to this, I don’t know who can – what are your thoughts?
