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Expert Skills Group acknowledges progress on its recommendations and highlights need for action on life-long learning

Following the appointment of a new Chairperson, Ms Anne Heraty, in March 2004, the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN), which now incorporates the National Training Advisory Council, reviewed progress made on all of its recommendations to date.

Commenting, Ms Heraty said, “Substantial progress has been made on recommendations made by the Expert Group, which were aimed at ensuring that Ireland’s skills needs are met in a timely fashion. The work of the Expert Group, will now evolve to mirror Ireland’s changing skills requirements. The Enterprise Strategy Group clearly identified education and training as one of the five areas in which Ireland can build sustainable competitive advantage. When planning to exploit this advantage we must now take into account the fact that we are moving from an era of investment led growth to one where innovation will be a key driver”.

“The Expert Group will focus on two main priorities. The first will be to progress the “One-Step-Up” initiative proposed by the Enterprise Strategy Group. This initiative is aimed at raising the skill levels, rather than retraining those at work and on transferable rather than company specific skills. The second priority relates to graduates. The focus needs to be on delivering the highest quality graduates with sufficient numbers in fields of direct relevance to enterprise,” continued Ms Heraty.

Ms Heraty added that, in order to make progress on these key objectives, the Expert Group would look forward to active engagement with bodies such as the higher education institutions.

“I believe that, increasingly, these bodies will need to identify both regional and national business needs and move to address any gaps, by establishing new courses or updating existing ones,” said Ms Heraty.

She also commented that “the Skills and Labour Market Research Unit in FÁS, established with the specific aim of providing us with a comprehensive database of relevant information for future skills planning, is already supplying us with valuable data on which to base our recommendations”.

Progress in achieving objectives

Overall, there has been concrete progress in implementing the recommendations of the Expert Group’s reports. The Expert Group wishes to acknowledge the excellent work done by government departments, agencies and educational institutions in the following areas:

• Substantial increases in third-level and training course places to address supply shortages in the ICT and life sciences sectors in particular.
  
  
• Promotion of careers in science, technology and engineering – this has been one of the key messages adopted by the Group and leading to the establishment of an awareness campaign within secondary schools. The range of such initiatives has now coalesced within a national awareness strategy – Discover Science and Engineering.
  
  
• Concrete strategies to attract foreign researchers – the practical steps recommended in the Expert Group’s joint report with the HEA on this subject (Creating Ireland’s Innovation Society: The Next Strategic Step, July 2003) have been acted upon, for instance through enabling the fast-tracking of visa applications and arrangements for spouses and partners to have easier access to employment.
  
  
• Establishment of a comprehensive national training/trainers database – the absence of this basic information, identified by several sources as a barrier to training in the in-company training report of 2000, has been addressed - the database is accessible via the FÁS website (http://www.fas.ie).

Issues requiring further progress

The Expert Group is concerned that delays or failure to act on some important factors will create barriers to more significant progress. This is particularly the case in regard to the increasingly important objective of raising the skills levels of those currently in work.

Ms Heraty said: “We view the delay in putting in place the overarching structure to oversee the implementation of the recommendations identified in the 2002 report of the Task Force on Lifelong Learning as a major impediment. Issues such as the benchmarking and improvement of our current low literacy and numeracy levels represent essential underpinning for ensuring the longer-term availability of a highly-skilled work-force.”

“There is also opportunity for stronger engagement between the education and enterprise sectors. At third-level, vigilance in monitoring the continuing relevance of curriculum content and creating the most effective combinations of work experience and education modules for key disciplines is absolutely vital,” she concluded.

ENDS

©2006 EGFSN The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, Wilton Park House, Wilton Place, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel: +353 (0)1 607 3116

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