Making the Grade: The Challenges to Making young people s grades reflect their skills

As per my messages so far, i have been pushing for a way to help NEETs by making qualified assessment part of every youth service, to allow their grades to reflect their skills.

Of course, any new initiative needs research, and having spoken to a number of different charities, they have given me good feedback. The key kind of assessment to help NEETs, is a Competency Based Assessment, to grade them by ability and skill. This i believe is crucial to allowing them to demonstrate their true potential to employers. Most young people work or have worked, and have picked up transferrable skills that we can assess them on, to map out and recognise their prior learning, before these young people are sent on the relevant courses.

There are so many reasons why this matters. First of all, the price of education and training. Education costs money. Each course is an investment and a privilege. So we need to make sure that the education available, goes to the people who need it the most.

Then there is the argument for common sense efficiency. We don’t need to teach people what they already know. Certain organisations leaders know this and fast track their top candidates, to save time and resources.  The same should be done for all people in our workforce: but especially for the disadvantaged young people with talent, who need every skill on display to recruiters, in order to survive the brutal war for talent.

And there is a perfect example of how resources can be wasted when this does not happen. While at High School, (Sixth Form as it was known in England at the time) i took French with a student who really didn’t need to be there. She and her family had lived in France for 5 years and needless to say, her French was word perfect. She could have taken the French exam there and then, and would have passed with flying colours - vraiment as the French would say.

Yet this poor student spent 2 years 'learning' alongside the rest of us, which must have been as mind numbingly boring as being made to learn your ABC s when you’re a librarian. And it wasn’t just her time that was wasted. When we think of the amount of textbooks, soundtracks, field trips, pencils, notebooks and countless other resources used to 'teach' her, it added up to thousands. And how much of this could have gone to teaching someone else who didn’t know French but would certainly benefit career wise from learning a foreign language?

So clearly we should be making sure that talented young people are fast tracked through the system and graded according to the skills they already have, to save them time and resources.

As with all ideas of course, there are challenges. And these are some of the challenges we face so far:

Assessors must always be hired by the businesses or other organisations, to work with the young people they serve. This usually means funding is needed and assessment comes, "with a price attached" according to one source.

Sadly the assessors can t work as part of an existing team such as social services, without specific funding, which may be difficult to justify and acquire. For one thing, I am told that Government funding that existed for competency based assessments in UK workplaces is no longer available.

While some courses do allow an exam for candidates who are at the right level, it still happens, that in most cases, young people must be sent on and complete a course before they are assessed. And again, funding such courses may not always be an option.

Each training centre must apply for each individual accreditation, to be able to award that grade to a young candidate. For example a training centre would have to apply to the awarding body for customer service, to be able to assess a candidate and award them that certificate. The awarding body would then send an assessor of their own, who was qualified to award only that certificate. The whole process would have to be repeated again to award the same candidate a certificate in another skill, such as Manual Handling.

And like the old CRB system for criminal records checks, (used before the current Disclosure and Barring Service came in), each awarding body has its own criteria that a training centre must meet to be able to award that qualification.  Given that there are around 170 different skills to be assessed on in the UK alone, this makes it impossible for one trainer to award certificates for several different skills to the same candidate at once. This makes  one full assessment of a candidate’s many skills all but impossible.

And when grades are awarded, the awarding bodies need evidence of time spent either training or learning: ie x number of hours study or a minimum of 10 hours per week working in a particular skill. This does not help NEETs who are unemployed, or who have ungraded skills different to the role they are working in.

So based on the challenges so far, here are my recommendations for moving the process forward:

- Using the new DBS certificate system and the old Investors In People status as as an example, there should be one UK-wide accreditation system, merging all awarding bodies into one federation of sorts, which could award competency based skills in all subjects. This would ensure that for example, being a QCF Accredited training provider would allow a training centre to award all types of QCF applications, without having to apply for each one individually. Like DBS it would make the system more efficient, and allow all information on one individual to be kept in one place: but in a positive way, to help NEETs careers.

- Training providers could be defined as single organisations, co-operatives, or accredited individuals. This would allow charities and assessors to work together, and make arrangements for one assessor to work for several charities at once, to assess and qualify the young people in their care.

- More funding could be given to hire assessors for competency based assessments of young service users in youth organisations who support young people not in education or training.

 For example a Government sponsored social services fund for the purpose of employability could include this kind of assessment as part of its work programmes. Some schemes do exist but are discretionary and rely too much on local initiative. Of course this is a matter of policy, and should the Government not be inclined to do this directly, a charity could be set up to get the funding for this.

Conclusion

All young people s grades should reflect their skills: especially NEETs who must be compensated for their disadvantage by being allowed to demonstrate their actual skillset and prior learning. Competency based assessment is the most effective way to make sure of this. We must now face the challenges and find a way to give disadvantaged young people the same recognition of value as their student and apprentice counterparts, to ensure that they get the best opportunity for a good career.

My Vision for NEETs - How Qualified Assessment can help disadvantaged young people

Here's how i believe qualified assessment can be used to help the education, training and career development of disadvantaged young people (known as NEETs here in the UK.)

The standard approach my colleagues in receuitment would usually take, would be to find a candidate s strengths and then direct him or her down the appropriate career path. But while that is certainly the right thing to do, i believe it is only part of the solution we should consider.

There are several other themes i think are equally important, in the overall picture for the development of disadvantaged young people s careers. These are:

- Recognition of value

- No young adult left behind

- A job at the end of it

Recognition of value

Before we send candidates down a career path, i think it is very important to recognise the value of their achievements so far. If all young people s grades reflected their actual skill set, i believe that the overall qualifications NEETs possess - and hence their career potential - would increase dramatically.

After all, I'm sure careers officers would agree, that before you even send a job applicant on any kind of courses, you should first assess his or her skills and experience: what does this candidate actually know? What has he or she actually done and what kind of skills does he or she possess?

This is especially true for young people who are not in education nor training (or 'NEETs' as we know them here in the UK), because as my colleagues in recruitment know all too well, there is a no holds barred 'war' to find the best talent for the biggest organisations.

As a candidate, you have to sell yourself for every grade, qualification, every ounce of talent you possess, to a recruiter: and while brilliant in themselves, i submit that the downside to apprenticeships, is that they have raised the bar of employers' expectations - as has our globalised job market. Young applicants could now be up against some of the best qualified people in the world - including fully qualified apprentices with both the industry experience and the grades.

Fortuntely in their favour, and as statistics show, around 80 of 16-24 year olds in the UK have a job or have worked in one. Therefore, i submit that even those who may not have had eduction or training, have actually picked up a lot of skills from their experience, in the various jobs they have worked.

But experience alone is not enough. As one recruiting manager once told me, the hiring manager will be pleased that a young person worked in a similar job before, but will want proof that a candidate is actually at the required level (be this Level 1, 2 3 etc) for that particular role. This is why i believe that qualified assessment is the key.

If disadvantaged youg people were assessed on all their complete skillset, and qualified accordingly, they would be able to demonstrate a lot of career potential in all major key skills. I firmly believe this would help them.to stand out and hold their own when competing.for roles against fully qualified apprentices, and graduates of higher education.

No Young Adult Left Behind

Rather than be a 'nice to have' part of the support offered to NEETs, i submit that a full qualified assessment of their skills should be seen as a basic standard of further education to be offered to all young people between the ages of 18-24. 

Just as all 5-18 year olds in the UK have an absolute right to a school education, so too should all 18-24 year olds receive further education: be it in the form of a degree, an apprenticeship; or as a bare mimum, a free full qualified assessment, to recognise prior learning through experience.

For this reason, i believe that full qualified assessment for all skills should be an integral part of the support services offered to disadvantaged young people. Every service from social services, to young offenders institutes, should employ qualified assessors, to offer this to all young people they work to support.

Just as we once said No Child Left Behind, so i say no youg adult should be left behind either.

A Job at the End of it

Skills and qualifications are all very well, but as critics have often pointed out: what good are they if there is no job at the end of it? 

That is why i believe we need to use online recruiting systems to flag up newly qualified NEETs to potential new employers. The digital badging system for pathways that Kevin Field has told me about seems a novel idea for this.

I also think we could tie the pathways systems to start up databases, so that entrepreneurs can seek out NEETs to provide the labour for their start ups. This would give NEETs the entry level jobs into the industries they need, and would help entrepreneurs build their businesses.

Summary

This is how i believe that qualified assessment can be used to recognise the value of disadvantaged young people, and help their careers.

James M

Founder

Feedback so far

A Response to Points Made so far

Following my open letter, there are a number of points from feedback, members and others have given to me so far, and I would like to respond to these, and offer some more points for discussion.

Firstly, that our forum seems to be dealing with too many issues at once. According to one member, it seems to be trying to solve many different issues to with many different groups of people. And in response to this, I will say, there is only one issue that this forum is here to deal with: the creation of jobs and career opportunities.

However, the need for opportunity is so universal, and affects many different groups of people, in many different ways, that there are potentially hundreds of issues to discuss. Therefore, I have narrowed it down to 3 areas, but the reason why I have chosen to discuss all 3 of these ways to create opportunities - knowledge transfer, skills and qualifications and job creation - is because dealing with any one of these aspects by itself would only solve part of the problem.

It is all very well being qualified and assessed on a course, for example, but where is the job at the end of it? It is all very well having a job, but what about the innovations (and skills) needed to create new opportunities in that industry? And it is all very well wanting to start a business - and create jobs in the process - but what do you make or sell, and who do you hire who is willing to work in a start up, for long hours at low pay?

All these areas are linked, and in many ways, the issues overlap one another: hence I have deliberately expanded the scope of this forum, to consider how the challenges in each area affect the other two, and what kind of co-ordinated solution we can find to resolve them.

So what I plan for eventually, is to have 3 teams of people in effect, who are dedicated to dealing with each of these aspects of our forum. They would look at the challenges faced by each group of people - the students, the NEETs, and the adult entrepreneurs - and find ways to create opportunities for them, as per the plan in my open letter.

Dedicated and experienced volunteers, could in time become trustees for Let's Build Bridges, enabling it to become an Unincorporated Association. They would be helped by volunteers in each field, who believe in jobs and career opportunities for the people they are helping.

And so I would like to give you a brief update on each area so far:

Student Opportunities

One project I have been focusing on right now for student opportunities, is the GMTG Performing Arts Group: an online networking group on Linkedin, to engage performing arts students, artists and creatives, and including members and Alumni of my university's Guild Musical  Theatre Group. This online group is now approaching nearly 50 members, and includes a wide range of full time arts professionals, performing arts students, and arts enthusiasts, both young and adult:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8342825

The group is gaining momentum, with artists and creatives coming forward to join it, and I believe we can now offer some real connections and career opportunities, to students and adults who are looking for careers in arts and entertainment.

That is why I have proposed a Question and Answer session between all members, and have been speaking with our student engagement officer about how this might be done:

http://jamesperformingarts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/q-and-a.html

It may not yet be possible to hold such an event, until the group gains more members. We still need key leaders from each generation of Alumni to come forward. And as always, it is difficult to get so many people on different schedules, to meet at the same time and place.

But all the same, I believe that this group presents a very good opportunity to arts enthusiasts, and the success of its members is clear proof to the business community, that the performing arts is in fact a valid profession for our students to learn. And it is my hope, that this group will set an example for other student-Alumni networking groups to follow.

NEET's

With cut backs being made to your services in the UK, this is likely to damage the opportunities of disadvantaged young people (or 'NEETs' as we know them over here). Therefore, I think that Kevin Field's digital badging system, could be one way to compensate for this loss, by helping NEETs in a new way. Qualified assessment of all skills and abilities is still the best way forward, and I believe that once qualified, this digital system could then be used to flag newly qualified NEETs to potential new employers.

A good place for us to try this, would be in the borough of Tower Hamlets in London. As one member of this group has told me, London has a higher number of 18-24 year olds who face challenges to finding employment, compared with the rest of the UK. There are of course, schemes in place to help these disadvantaged young people. But there is not yet one that I have found, where NEETs are fully assessed and qualified, according to their prior learning and skill level. The flaw seems to be that although employers may offer traineeships, they don't have to award certificate qualifications to candidates, at the end of every course. Another challenge, is that the focus is only on getting the NEETs onto their chosen career path. This is fine: but I also think that if NEET's qualifications and grades were made to reflect all of their skills, it would allow them to overcome their disadvantage, by demonstrating their worth to future employers. And a few extra certificate qualifications may not seem like much, but they might be the vital step up a disadvantaged candidate needs, to land a new job.

So I would like us to consider using full qualified assessment, and the digital badging system for young people in the Tower Hamlets borough, and welcome the chance to discuss this with members of our group.

Adult Entrepreneurs

Thanks to the entrepreneurs I have spoken to, for their feedback. Regarding the Gorilla Database: there are many innovations from the universities that could be used for new products and services, but entrepreneurs from business start ups who used them, would have to reassure the universities' leaders, that these would not disrupt the market. This would mean careful planning and market readiness for the launch of new products and services.

My response to this issue is: surely the current patents from graduates' innovations have already had to undergo such a process? They have surely had the same opposition from potential competitors from within the marketplace, and have had to be released, following careful negotiations between the universities and the large organisations.

And by that logic, I see no reason why we shouldn't also consider using the innovations of graduates whose unread theses and PHD's have not yet been made into products or services. Surely entrepreneurs could negotiate with the same contacts at the universities, to use these innovations? This will need some thought, and I will be in contact with several universities about the use of their masters graduates theses, to make new products and services.


Of course, the universities are one possible source for innovations. There are plenty of entrepreneurs who have their own ideas, and make successful businesses from them. But I believe that if entrepreneurs are looking for inspiration, that there are enough unread theses at each university in the world, for potentially hundreds of new innovations for enterprise.

The next challenge for start ups, would of course be funding. As one entrepreneur said to me: there are many 20-30 something people who would like to start a business, but who need someone else to invest in them. They may need Angel investors, or Venture Capitalists, but I am also wondering about older entrepreneurs, who as my friend have said, have made their money over the years, and are now looking for potential new ventures or challenges to take on. These people might make useful investors, if they get together with the other entrepreneurs, to help fund their projects.

Summary

These are the points from feedback so far, and they will help Let's Build Bridges to develop our long term plans.

So if there are any people you know, who are passionate about the need for opportunity, please tell them about our forum, and invite them here to be a part of it.

Best Regards

James M

Founder

An Open Letter to All

An Open Letter

To all members of the forum, and readers online. Instead of the usual updates, for January and February, there is something I would like us all to consider.

As you may know, and as part of the plan for this forum, I am looking towards long term developments, and believe that Let’s Build Bridges can function, ultimately, as a charity, to help the jobs and career opportunities of young people and of adults. If you are a group member on our forum’s Facebook, Linkedin, or Google+ pages, you are under no obligations of course: associating with this forum does not bind you to it in any way, and you are welcome to contribute whatever you feel is appropriate, for your level of interest in our forum.

You have all responded to my various invitations, to join this forum, and as you will have seen, the members of our forum are from many different professions and backgrounds. But essentially, our main aim has always been about finding ways to create new opportunities for people. We all believe that there should be more opportunities for young people and adults. And with the combined talents and experience of this group, I believe we have the right combinations of experience, the skills and the knowledge, to make this happen.

What I am looking for now, is for like-minded people you would recommend, who are interested in growing this project and taking it to the next stage in its evolution. After some development, I would like Let’s Build Bridges to become an unincorporated charity. You, the existing members would be more than welcome to continue following what we do as before, but you may know people you could recommend, who would become its trustees.

To recap what this forum is here to do, Let’s Build Bridges was founded to consider ways of helping the opportunities of three groups of people. They are:

·         Students

·         Disadvantaged young people (known as ‘NEET’s’ in the UK)

·         Adult entrepreneurs

By aiming to help each of these groups, I believe we are enabling the core values of opportunity. These are:

·         Knowledge transfer

·         Skills and Qualifications

·         Job creation

With this in mind, the forum’s objectives are:

Student Opportunities

·         To ensure that all students are given work experience, as part of their higher education

·         To encourage student-Alumni networking across all industries and professions

·         To make student work experience a two-way process, allowing students to pass on their innovations, and receive mentoring and coaching for their chosen industry in return.

NEETs

·         To ensure that the skills and abilities of all 18-24 year olds, not in education or training ('NEETs'), are recognised and reflected by their grades.

·         To do this by ensuring that all NEET’s are offered a full qualified assessment of their skills and abilities.

·         To enable this by making full qualified assessment an integral part of every youth service.

Adult Entrepreneurs

·         To empower all adults who are wanting to start a business of their own, or be part of one.

·         To combine innovations, entrepreneurs, and a variety of both skilled and unskilled participants, to create new businesses.

·         To use business start-ups as a means of job creation for adults, and for young people.    

These are the three main areas of the forum’s discussions, and what I plan to make into the 3 areas of Let’s Build Bridges’ operations. But of course, this is a team effort. And while I am passionate about opportunity, there are of course, many others who have original ideas about how to create opportunities for people’s jobs and careers.

In many ways, i think we all underestimate the need for opportunity. Time and again, i have seen the effect of frustration on individuals, who are made to feel jealous of others success, because of a missed opportunity. Indeed, a great many social ills, from bullying to crime, can be traced in some form, right back to a lack of opportunity. Jobs and careers play an important part in people s lives, and by enabling them, we can help both young people and adults enjoy the opportunities they have.

So if you know anyone who is passionate about the creation of jobs, and/or careers, in the ways described above – among your colleagues, contacts, or friends of friends – then please do put them in touch with me, on the details below, or invite them to this forum, and with their help, and your interest, we will take Let’s Build Bridges to the next stage in its development.

Best Regards

James Megarry LLM, LLB, LCM

Founder

Let’s Build Bridges

Email: Jamesmegarry@hotmail.com


Links:

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Lets-Build-Bridges-5133737?trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/419487984829959/

Google + : https://plus.google.com/communities/112411370806442294141

Blog:  http://letsbuildbridges.blogspot.co.uk/

No Regrets - Why We should not need to look back

One of the most important reasons for this forum, is to make sure that my fellow adults and today's generation of young people, are making the most of the opportunities in their lives. Time and time again, I have met adults who feel they have not done this, and as the saying goes, it is what we don't do in life that we regret the most. We need to make sure that the young people of today are given the best opportunities possible, so that by the time they have become adults, they will not look back with regret, at the career choices they have made.

Teachers understand how important it is, to give young people the best start in life. Who you are now affects how you will be in years to come. As we say at my old university, the students for example, are the 'leaders of tomorrow.' So what kind of a future do we want to give them? And the same goes for disadvantaged young people. Just because they face challenges, should not stop them from having good careers: but of course, they need to be given the right opportunities for this to happen.

And to my fellow adults: I would say that for us, we need to be able to look back with satisfaction on our lives, and know that we used our experience, to make the most of the opportunities around us. It is when we don't do this, that we succumb to something of a pandemic in today's world: the midlife crisis.

The midlife crisis might seem laughable to anyone under 30, but I can assure you, it is no joke. You begin to realise that time is passing you by, and that old friends now even have grandchildren. Then it hits home. We wake up one day and think 'what happened to my life?' It is true that relationships play a big part in our past regrets. But equally, something I have noticed, is that time and again, a missed career opportunity, is what my fellow adults regret the most.

If we adults are honest here, as this classic Star Trek moment illustrates: one of our greatest fears is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHoPLhpw2g4


But it doesn't have to be this way. We have the power to change that. My fellow adults have years of experience, and if we get properly organised, can co-ordinate our efforts to create some amazing opportunities for ourselves, and for the young people of today. We need to do everything we can to make this happen. You only live once, and it is important that both young people and adults, have the jobs and the career opportunities they need to live a good, fulfilling life.

So let's make this happen.

A Question of Value

Employment References - How We Can Streamline the Process

It's a familiar story. A third party organisation's administrator calls up to request a reference letter, to confirm that a former employee worked for my client's company: the dates of her employment, job title and reason for leaving.

I then get work checking the former employee's file, extracting the information and putting it on a letter, to send to the requester. A routine process for all pre-employment screening, for new starters within an organisation: and the third party administrator needs an employment reference for theirs. I go through the process and issue them the reference.

But then I notice something odd. Our own new starter team, who are carrying out the screening on behalf of our client's organisation, have been chasing the reference letters, from some of the companies these candidate worked for, for weeks now. And without these letters, the candidates cannot be started. Until they are started, their details cannot be keyed into our systems, and payroll cannot make the arrangements for their pay check. In other words, because employment reference letters have not been sent, the whole process grinds to a halt.

Why has this happened? I suspect, it is because the administrators working on behalf of the candidate's former employers, have been told that reference letters are 'not a priority'. The priority in most organisations' human resources teams that I have seen, is of course, to process the new starters their organisation; to administer the payroll correctly (which will be carefully audited and must therefore be done thoroughly), and to facilitate the work of current employees. As one colleague once told me, he considered that the reference letters were 'only one thing' out of the whole, detailed process.

And therein lies the problem. This 'one thing' hold up most organisations' recruitment, because it's a one way street. We in HR, will always be chasing the references for incoming candidates to our own organisations - these will have priority. But not the ones for outgoing candidates, who going to work for others. And so, we're all stuck in the same endless cycle of needing employment references from other organisations, but not given enough incentive to fast track ours to them. How can we break out of this? Here's a suggestion I have.

I think we should approach this challenge, like an unspoken contract, between certain organisations. The relationship between our organisation and the third party requester could be like a contract: we need something from them and they need something from us. So if there are two organisations, who enjoy a high exchange of the same employees, then their new starters and employment reference teams could have a mutual arrangement in place, to fast track each others' candidates' applications.

For example, when a former employee from Organisation A, applies to join Organisation B, the new starter team from Organisation B could immediately contact the HR Administrator at Organisation A, who is in charge of employment references. Organisation A's administrator knows to fast track this reference, by his/her employer's arrangement with Organisation B, and does so. In return, the new starter team at Organisation B, then inform their own administrator, who issues external employment references, about some of Organisation A's new starters, who will need references fast tracking. And so, by careful arrangement between both organisations, their new starters are able to benefit from a more streamlined process. (I already have an unspoken agreement like this in place, with our new starter team, to fast track employment references, for former employees, of our client's organisation, who are coming back to work for us.)

Of course, there are many challenges to such an arrangement. All candidates have an equal right to seek employment, and this may appear to give an unfair advantage to some above others. The way to address this problem, is to make any such agreements official, so that candidates from other organisations will understand why the ones participating, are given priority: it is a business deal, in effect, for more streamlined recruitment processes, and is a voluntary agreement, by all participating organisations. 

I think we should at least consider this kind of arrangement, as an important incentive, to streamline our pre-employment screening processes. Employment references are only one part of the process, but they are an important one. A candidate needs his/her reference letter in a timely fashion, to start in a new role: and what better incentive for the former employer, if their own new starters' candidates' references will be fast tracked in return.