The Department for International Development (DFID) issues today its new education strategy, designed in particular to educate the 72 million children who currently don’t go to primary school, and the 300-400 million who get inadequate schooling. There are welcome proposals to build at least 15,000 classrooms a year; train at least 130,000 teachers a year (although the world needs another 10.3 million teachers by 2015); and raise DFID spending on education to over £1 billion a year.

But the strategy is almost all about the supply of education places and the quality of teaching – and access and quality are simply not the reason so many children currently don’t get an education. To tackle that would require a challenge to child labour: and as so often, DFID ignores the labour standards element of poverty reduction. Read more »

   Filed under: International development, Skills | No Comments »

I’ve had a couple of posts rather critical of the cuts package proposed by Vince Cable at the Lib Dem conference. It would be churlish not to report his excellent contribution to a TUC fringe meeting at the Lib Dem conference where he shared a platform with Brendan Barber to discuss the TUC’s Touchstone pamphlet, the Real Middle Britain.  Read more »

   Filed under: Politics, Recession, Skills, Tax | Comments Off

The BBC’s flagship radio news programme Today has had a couple of interesting pieces on happiness in the last couple of days, including a report from Denmark, which regularly tops polls as the happiest place in Europe. They included a clip of David Cameron’s call for more consideration of general well-being than gross domestic product. Much of the modern interest in this flows from Richard Layard’s book Happiness in the UK and the positive psychology movement in the USA  spearheaded by Martin Seligman. Of course happiness has its critics too. Should there be a trade union perspective?

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   Filed under: Employers, Inequality, Skills, Social mobility | 3 Comments »

Today’s Low Carbon Transition Plan is a very welcome document that maps out not just a proper response to the threat of climate chaos but also starts to map out the shape of the UK economy after the recession. Read more »

   Filed under: Energy, Environment, Skills | Comments Off

Who said this?

“The UK economy needs to be weaned off its dependency on financial services. To do this, it needs a national economic council to provide strategic leadership and an industrial bank to help businesses shunned by traditional high street lenders. Other ways to help could include the government sending signals about its long term priorities to give companies the confidence to invest. Government should also use its £175bn a year purchasing power to suport emerging industries and it should target investment in strategic sectors of the economy.”

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   Filed under: Economics, Manufacturing, Science, Skills | Comments Off

Today over 200 trade unionists and green campaigners are gathering at Congress House for the TUC’s annual climate change conference.  They’ll be the first to get their hands on the new TUC publication Changing Work in a Changing Climate, which is the result of a major new piece of research into what adapting to climate change means for jobs and working lives in the UK.

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   Filed under: Employers, Environment, Equality, Safety, Skills | Comments Off

In addition to the new jobs and training package for unemployed under-25s, the Budget included two other welcome initiatives that will help to counter unemployment by increasing education and training opportunities for young people.

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   Filed under: Budget 2009, Skills | Comments Off

The opening sentence in the Prime Minister’s foreword to the Social Mobility White Paper stresses that the new global economy requires an even greater investment in education and skills to support many more citizens to achieve their full potential. Crudely put, this argues that it is no longer possible for governments to tackle barriers to social mobility simply by improving levels of social protection.

Fulfilling the potential of each and every citizen in the new global economy is writ large throughout the document and a quick word search finds 72 instances of the word potential.  Interestingly, the word inequality is only cited seven times!  But for much more on the relationship between social mobility and inequality – and the current political debate – see the two incisive posts today by Richard and Nicola.

The focus on further reforms to education and skills as the answer to driving up social mobility dominates the White Paper. The bulk of the document is dedicated to the four key ‘learning phases’ that can have a significant impact on advancing social mobility – early learning and childcare, schools, immediate post-school destinations, and lifelong learning in the workplace. Read more »

   Filed under: Skills, Social mobility | Comments Off

This week the social mobility wars have started again – both parties think we need more of it but have different views on how to get there. But do any of their proposals address the real problems? Getting On Getting Ahead sets out Labour’s case for how Government might ensure more people have a chance of getting better jobs. The Conservatives have called it pointless spin, claiming that limited increases in social mobility mean Labour policy on poverty has failed.

The Labour position is not perfect - despite much helpful analysis the role that inequality has in tackling social mobility is not touched on. But the Conservative position is reactionary and dangerous, paving a return to the misery of the 80s for low-paid Britain. Read more »

   Filed under: Inequality, Politics, Skills, Social mobility, Welfare | 3 Comments »

I work on the floor below Nigel and the sound of the gauntlet hitting the ground as he wrote that last post was deafening.  So what economic policies should social democrats be championing now given that: a) we are about to enter a serious recession and we need to protect those who face hardship while also finding a way out; b) the credibility of free market solutions and financial services as a growth leader is shot?  These are my top five but willing to be challenged. Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Energy, Environment, Manufacturing, Skills, Tax | 2 Comments »