Can a European model of training and education — based on knowledge rather than employers’ needs — better equip the UK industry for the challenge of low-carbon building?
Research has consistently highlighted the UK’s poor record in terms of vocational education and training, especially at intermediate and skilled occupational level, compared with other leading European countries. Yet this level of training has been identified as critical to the future development of the construction labour force.
Meanwhile, the figures for youth unemployment in the UK continue to rise, with 1.4 million not in full-time education as of July 2010, of which nearly half were unemployed. Apprenticeship, despite efforts to revive it, continues to play a minor role: while in 2007 63% of 16-18-year-olds were in full-time education, only 6.8% were in government-supported work-based learning, with only 5.7% in apprenticeships.
With a workforce of nearly 1.9 million, construction is one of the largest industries in the UK and should provide thousands of young people with an interesting and valuable career. Yet even flagship projects such as the Olympics still rely on many who have benefited from the vocational education and training in other European countries. The lack of a comprehensive system of vocational training in the UK, with areas such as concreting, formwork and groundwork having little, if any, provision, remains a key problem faced by the industry.
In this context, ConstructionSkills has launched its “Cut the Carbon” campaign, intended to promote skills in low-carbon building. But if “green” buildings are to be considered as standard by the construction industry a paradigm shift is needed, involving not only technological measures (super insulation, air tightness, appropriate ventilation), but a restructuring of the vocational education system. But construction training in the UK is typified by a weak statutory framework, the fragmented nature of its skills sets, minimal underpinning knowledge, and the provision of functional skills rather than broad-based education.
We recently completed a study of bricklaying qualifications and training in eight European countries — Bricklaying is More Than Flemish Bond: Bricklaying Qualifications in Europe — which exemplifies some of these problems.
The UK system stands out in being strongly based on traditional notions of apprenticeship and having a weak knowledge component and narrow skill set, mimicking labour market demands.
In contrast, in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, vocational training for bricklaying, rather than being based directly on the labour market, is built on the duality between education and employers, between the state and industry, and between classroom-based and work/workshop-based learning. This dual system protects and develops the occupational capacity and potential of the bricklayer, as well as the continuous evolution of the sector so necessary for low-carbon construction.
This approach inevitably relies on a broader definition of the bricklayer, with significant integrated college and training (in simulated workshop activity) elements. It is a different form of apprenticeship, one more directed to the future and the long-term development of the individual and the industry than in the UK.
Different models of training are evident in Europe. But in most countries, however, the traditional form of apprenticeship has largely disappeared to be replaced by qualifications that foreground general education and personal development, as well as a broad form of occupational capacity.
In Germany, for example, construction workers are highly skilled, following a minimum of three years vocational education and training geared towards training for “innovation” rather than site-based experience, regarded as “for the market” It is all but impossible to work on a site without going through the training system, which seeks to equip trainees for a career, developing their capacities and potential and not just imparting skills to meet immediate employer requirements. Can this provide a model for the innovative vocational training needed for low-carbon construction in the UK?
Professor Linda Clarke is Professor of European Industrial Relations at Westminster Business School, University of Westminster
