What is careers, employability skills and vocational learning?
Careers, employability skills and vocational learning encompasses careers and skills education provided to young people to help them make informed decisions about their future training and employment and equip them with skills to succeed in the labour market. Young people lack guidance on available educational and career pathways and there is an insufficient focus in education on essential employability skills. This causes young people to feel unprepared when they start looking for work and enter the labour market. Providing career guidance, ensuring young people build employability skills and keep pursuing trades or crafts through vocational learning is a way to provide necessary tools for a current generation having to face the complex challenge of entering a competitive labour market.
Why is it important to Ormiston Trust?
Ormiston Trust strongly believes in the importance of enabling today’s youth to benefit from careers counselling and proper employability skills training. The difficulties the next generation faces with regards to entering the job market pushes us to want to act to provide essential services related to careers and employability skills for young people.
Despite the current COVID-19 related economic crisis, it is expected that 800 000 students will have finished their education by the end of 2020 and start looking for a job (1). As a result of the pandemic, the labour market has become highly saturated, job opportunities are decreasing and youth unemployment has risen (1). There are no doubts about the critical societal implication’s unemployment and overall lack of preparation to enter the job market have for a country and its population. Therefore, it’s of utmost importance that students receive career counselling and proper employability skills training. Furthermore, career counselling has been proven to be very effective in helping students decide on their future careers and employability skills enable students to differentiate themselves in a competitive job market by showing transferable competencies.
Grant programme examples: Social action, work experience, university visits, STEM clubs, public speaking competitions, enterprise challenges, adventure residentials, alumni programme, curriculum-based skills learning
Desired Outcomes:
References:
(1) Resolution Foundation, 2020. “Jobs Jobs Jobs: Evaluating the effects of the current economic crisis on the UK labour market”. Resolution Foundation. https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/jobs-jobs-jobs/
