10X skills for a 10X economy
Released as a key component of the 10X Economy plan, the new draft skills strategy for Northern Ireland envisions economic growth driven by the rebalancing of skills imbalances, the creation of a culture of lifelong learning and the development of a “digital spine”.
The draft Skills Strategy for Northern Ireland: Skills for a 10X Economy was published in May as part of the 10X Economy strategy, which envisions the growth of Northern Ireland’s economy by 10 times from its current standing. Having opened the consultation process for the skills strategy upon its publication, the consultation period ended on 19 August.
Delivering an economy that performs at 10 times the rate that it currently does will require a transformation of the skills capacity in Northern Ireland, which will “mean investing in the skills that will drive our key strategic clusters, boosting the research and innovation potential of our workforce and developing Northern Ireland as a global hub of knowledge through strong collaboration between government, business and our world class research institutions”, the strategy says.
The consultation document lays out the three major policy objectives within the strategy: addressing skills imbalances; creating a lifelong culture of learning; and enhancing digital skills in order to create a “digital spine”. The three policy enablers that will underpin these objectives are: enhancing policy cohesion; building strong relationships; and investment in the skills system. These objectives and enablers have been formulated in part through the use of the Skills Barometer for Northern Ireland, which has shown that three key issues to address social and economic development are: the prevalence of individuals with low, or no qualifications; limited opportunities for high paying jobs and pathways for career progression; and a ‘skills deficit’ and comparatively poor productivity performance.
The actions included in the plan to achieve the goal of addressing skills imbalances include increasing the proportion of people graduating from higher education institutions with degrees and post-graduate qualifications in STEM subjects such as physical, environmental and computer sciences, engineering and mathematics, “significantly” increasing the proportion of individuals achieving level 3, 4 and 5 qualifications, and increasing the proportion of the working age population with qualifications at level 2 and above. In order to achieve the second goal of the creation of a lifelong culture of learning, initiatives such as investment in apprenticeships, a Flexible Skills Fund to support upskilling and reskilling, and proposals for investment in leadership and management training are mentioned.
Key to the development of digital skills and the digital spine, the plan proposes is the publication of a separate plan. “It is proposed that a ‘Digital Skills Action Plan’ is developed to support the objectives of our economic vision: driving our decade of innovation and providing everyone with the opportunity to participate in our 10X Economy,” the report says. This digital action plan would utilise the same co-design principles used for the skills strategy, appoint an expert panel to consider the changing digital skills needs of the economy and identify the changes needed in education to meet the needs of the labour market and society.
The report concludes on a familiar note, by emphasising the need for multi-year budgets in Northern Ireland: “Not only do we need to reprioritise our investment in education and skills, but we need a commitment to introduce the multi-year budgets which will underpin strategic planning and the transformational change in our skills system that will be required to deliver our 10X Economy.”
