Teachers need to be taught digital skills to make the most of classroom technology
Ash Merchant, Education Director at Fujitsu UK and Ireland, discusses how the digital skills gap among teachers is costing the UK economy… The UK is facing a growing digital skills shortage, which is now estimated to cost small businesses £145,000 next year, and to impact the UK economy to the tune of £141 billion in lost GDP growth. As the UK approaches further political and economic disruption, these figures could worsen if the skills gap isn’t addressed. With the rate of technology and digital innovation moving at an unprecedented pace, many people are feeling as though they’re struggling to keep up. And this goes double for those in the education sector, who are responsible for imparting that knowledge to the next generation. Consequently, it’s never been more important for them to be up to speed with emerging and new technologies, in order to best prepare the nation’s youth for the future of work in a modern and digital-first world. Digital skills begin in the classroom The next generation are digital natives. They have grown up in a connected world and have never experienced a life without computers or internet connectivity. What this means is that many students actually surpass their teachers when it comes to digital aptitude, and potentially leave teachers feeling unprepared to teach their students on such a crucial topic. Worse, if teachers themselves lack the right knowledge and skills, they won’t be able to adequately ensure students gain the skills necessary in the digital era. Although it goes without saying that teachers want the digital skills to properly educate, we found that over half feel it’s difficult to keep up with technological change. And this is being felt by more than just teachers; according to government statistics, 11.3 million adults in the UK lack the basic digital skills required to operate effectively in day to day life – from activities such as sending emails or completing an online form and a further 4.3 million are said to have no digital skills at all. Empowering the teacher It’s clear that teachers need support when it comes to keeping up with technology, so it’s crucial that the technology industry makes an effort to arm them with the skills required to educate the next generation before they enter the workforce. For example, at Fujitsu we have our Certificate of Digital Excellence (CoDE) programme. Understanding the need for the next generation to have the right skills when entering the industry, we created CoDE, a free, online learning experience for teachers, which helps educate them on topics such as Artificial Intelligence, IoT, cyber Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Big Data and Programming and Robotics. Each of these has been recognised as a technology or skill needed by the next generation to help with their future careers. By empowering teachers with this knowledge, they can promote the best range of skills to students, while also providing excellent levels of knowledge to ensure we are fostering a generation that is equipped to compete in a digital Britain. A collective responsibility Ultimately, if we want to prepare the next generation to lead the way with the UK as a global tech hub, we need to focus our attention on investing in upskilling the teachers. To achieve this, the education sector not only has a responsibility to ensure its teachers and students have the most up to date and relevant education, but it’s also important that the technology companies who are creating the jobs of the future play a role in transferring the necessary skills.
English as an additional language: literacy training
Katy Parkinson, founder and director of Lexonik by Sound Training, discusses how literacy training can improve the experience which academics have when attending UK universities… Academics with English as an additional language (EAL) can benefit greatly from literacy education programmes, which improve both their vocabulary when writing and their confidence in speaking to others. Many students who attend our universities who are not native English speakers find that, although there is no gap in their knowledge of the subject matter, they can struggle to keep up with classmates due to a language deficit. This is often caused by accents or dialects being too far away from ‘the mainstream,’ and can lead to a lack of confidence when it comes to speaking in seminars or reading course materials. We have found while working with Chinese students from Teeside University Business School, that our programme, Lexonik, had a profound impact on international learners. We found that following the training, which consisted of six hour-long sessions which took place over six weeks, the average reading age had increased by 27 months. When the reading age improves, this, in turn, improves the learners’ confidence when speaking to others on their course, and gives them the independence to become more literate, working out words on their own which they may not have come across during the course of their education. Literacy training focuses on roots of words Lexonik teaches literacy through a fast, fun version of Latin. It focuses on the roots of words and allows the students to build up words from their key elements, so they can learn what they mean, rather than just learning by rote. There is also a significant amount of recapping and reinforcing, to work at the pace of both the fastest and slowest learners. One of the dangers educators can fall into, when teaching literacy adult learners, is using childish course materials. It is important not to come across as patronising, and to respect the learner rather than insulting their intelligence. For this reason, we specifically tailor our course materials to be adult-friendly, and our students responded well to this. It is important to remember when providing training to all EAL students, particularly those in academia, that we are aiming to plug a language gap, not a knowledge gap. Just as if you went abroad to study, and did not speak the language, you would bring with you a suite of skills and experience, so do these students. They must be supported to be curious, engaged, and feel like they are understood and respected, just as we educators would expect ourselves. See lexonik.co.uk for the range of literacy training available from primary schools upwards.
Can apprenticeships close the UK’s STEM skills gap?
A lack of workers with the correct STEM skills is reportedly costing the UK economy around £1.5 billion per annum. But could improving and developing STEM apprenticeships be the solution? Apprenticeships are becoming more popular than ever before, which is encouraging. But more still needs to be done to close the STEM skills gap. Perhaps due to their focus on offering hands-on and practical learning processes, apprenticeship programmes are ideally suited to the STEM — science, technology, engineering, and maths — sectors. But is there a way to boost the uptake where STEM apprenticeships are concerned? How big is the problem? To address the shortages, it’s important to understand the scale of it and what the future could hold if not dealt with efficiently. According to a response by the Royal Academy of Engineering, more than half of engineering companies say they have had problems recruiting the experienced engineers they need. Despite what many people may think, workforce ageing does play a significant role in the problem. As skilled and experienced engineers retire, it is increasing vacancies across thousands of engineering roles. Putting a more exact figure on this is EngineeringUK, which — through detailed analysis — has determined that there are annually 29,000 too few workers with level 3 skills and an even greater shortage of more qualified engineers — 40,000 of those with level 4 and above skills. Although we’ve passed the Brexit deadline and are still currently in the European Union, it continues to remain a problem for STEM businesses. As uncertainty remains, the UK’s exit from the European Union could create an even bigger headache for those in STEM sectors. To close the gap, more businesses are looking to become more inclusive. At present, under 10% of the engineering workforce is female, while those from minority ethnic backgrounds make up just 6% of the workforce. But, could apprenticeships be the solution? An insight to apprenticeships across the UK Traditionally, young people would leave school with a job waiting for them. Nowadays, students have a wealth of opportunities to choose from, whether it’s A-levels, BTECs or apprenticeships — and the latter is growing in popularity. Interestingly, over 491k young people started an apprenticeship in 2016-17. Each month, an average of 23,000 apprenticeship opportunities are listed on the government’s Find an Apprenticeship site, while organisations — such as WISE, which campaigns for gender balance in science, technology and engineering — are continually driving initiatives to help grow the number of apprentices in these sectors. However, between May and July 2017, parliamentary statistics show that only 43,600 people began an apprenticeship, which is a 61% reduction from the 113,000 that started in the same period in 2016. This has been largely accredited to an apprenticeship levy that was introduced in April 2017, which every employer with a pay bill of more than £3 million a year must adhere to if they want to employ apprentices. Has this had an impact on STEM-related businesses? Apparently not. In 2016/17, 112,000 people started a STEM apprenticeship — up from 95,000 in 2012/13. This growth is impressive and may be a sign that STEM employers are taking on board the warning that they must be creative with their recruitment processes. “The traditional recruitment pool is diminishing at the same time as work-based learning routes are facing increasing competition from alternative post-16-year-old provision. Employers wishing to attract quality applicants in sufficient numbers to meet their skills requirements have to look beyond their traditional sources” was one comment by Rod Kenyon, former director of the Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network. Should we be looking at the demographics of those who become apprentices to close in on the gap? Overall, women account for 50% of all apprentices in the UK. However, for STEM apprenticeships, they make up just 8% — encouraging this group of people could be the answer. It’s time to bring women into STEM positions. According to WISE, 5,080 women achieved a Core-STEM apprenticeship in 2016/2017, while 62,060 men accomplished the same in the same period. What makes this statistic even more concerning is that, according to an Apprenticeships in England report published by the House of Commons Library, 54% of overall apprenticeships starts were women in 2016/2017. Evidently, women are opting for apprenticeships in different fields, which means that STEM industries are missing out on thousands of potential workers if they don’t try to make their apprenticeship programmes as attractive to women apprentices as they clearly are to men. Reducing the gap By 2020, the government wants to place three million apprenticeships. Apprenticeships in STEM industries must be advocated and discussed in schools in order to instil a sense of enthusiasm from a younger age. Career advisors should make it clearer to kids that a university degree is not the only avenue to success and that the same level of fulfilment and opportunity is available with STEM apprenticeship programmes. Perhaps this means a stronger relationship between STEM firms and educational establishments, which can grant more opportunities for schoolchildren to get first-hand experience of how these companies work in practice prior to having to make an official decision. There are a lot of incentives for working in this industry too. The Institution of Engineering and Technology, otherwise known as IET, offers around £1 million in prizes, scholarships and awards. Hopefully, positive initiatives like the IET’s will help encourage participation in STEM apprentices and ease the pressure on these sectors’ skills gap – before it’s too late. This article was brought to you by Houghton International, industrial pump repairs specialists.