Fixing Business

Chapter 4 Harnessing the Power of Education, Training and Skills

“We all acknowledge the urgent need for major investment. We are all obsessed with investment in our physical infrastructure. Of course enhanced productivity and international competitiveness require this, but sustained investment in our human infrastructure is even more vital to deliver a socially cohesive, wealth-creative, productivity-enhancing, globally competitive UK.”

—Lord Digby Jones

Why is Education, Training and Skills Such a Vital Business Issue?

Increasing and improving education, training and skills (ETS) is a huge and ongoing challenge for our societies, and one where Business is both a customer, receiving and benefiting from education and training, and a supplier that is developing and supplying those skills. When it comes to fixing the reputation and standing of Business there is much more to be done in the areas of education, training and skills: specifically, there is more that Business needs, and more that Business can do to help.

Improving ETS is a big challenge for many complicated reasons but in large part because they are so vitally important at every level, affecting issues ranging from individual happiness and success through to Business's effectiveness and, finally, society's prosperity and the choices and decisions we all make collectively.

Crucially, education, training and skills are not issues that can ever be “settled”. In part this is because they are so closely connected with ...