The Construction Skills Strategy will succeed the Construction Qualification Strategy, written in 2005 and adopted in 2007. It aims to identify industry-wide education and training needs for the next five years. It has been focusing on six main areas to include: apprenticeships, competence, card schemes, management & supervision, low carbon and careers development.
CITB-ConstructionSkills is inviting comments on its draft recommendations.
The re-writing of the strategy follows changes to the education and training landscape, including the rollout of the vocational qualifications reform programme and widespread reform of 14 -19 learning and higher education funding. The recent HSE/Pye Tait report into competence has also identified the need to confirm the industry’s definition of competence.
CITB-ConstructionSkills head of education and research Nick Gooderson said: “This consultation has thrown up some really interesting observations and recommendations from stakeholders around qualification, skills and competencies. We’ve had a lot of valuable input from industry experts on the quality and practicability of construction qualifications and how they can best serve industry needs.
“We are working hard to ensure that we deliver the right skills for economic growth locally and nationally and a huge part of that challenge is ensuring that we have fit for purpose qualifications and pathways that meet both sector and learner needs.
“We’re keen to hear from all interested parties during the final phase of this review and welcome their response to the recommendations. It’s vital that these proposals accurately reflect industry demand and arm learners with the skills that make them both employable and confident of their capabilities and competence. This will form the bedrock of our skills strategy for the next five years so it’s imperative that we get it right.”
Online consultation is open from 20 January until 10 February 2012.
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