Generating our Success: The Northern Ireland Strategy for Youth Training

The Minister stated the strategy would ‘underpin our wider education and skills landscape and seeks to tackle disengagement and promote greater social mobility by preparing our young people for the jobs of the future’.  

The strategy was part of the review of apprenticeships and youth training that was announced by the Minister in February 2013. The review of apprenticeships culminated in June 2014 with the publication of ‘Securing our Success: the Northern Ireland Strategy on Apprenticeships’. The strategy has a combination of policy commitments from the Minister as well as an implementation plan. The new youth training system laid out in the strategy has a dual purpose: whilst providing young people with a solid foundation of skills, experience and qualifications that are valued by today’s labour market, it will also provide young people with a broad based knowledge and skills as the basis from which they can access future opportunities for employment or further study at a higher level.

The strategy was borne out of the understanding that a strong vocational educational and training system is a key enabler of successful transitions for young people from education into employment. The review of youth training was focused on all young people aged 16-24 who left school and did not currently hold a full level 2 qualification (defined as five GCSEs at grades A*-C including English and Maths). In 2014, 69,000 16-24 year olds did not hold qualifications at level 2 and, of these, approximately 20,000 were in employment, while 39,000 were NEET (Not in Education, Employment and Training).

The new youth training system will be very much employer led and through a Strategic Advisory Forum and new sectoral partnerships, employers can design a curriculum and structure for training that meets their needs. Furthermore there will be enhanced connections between those in training and employers and employers will be obliged to register their commitment and investment in youth training to ensure training is of a sufficient quality standard.

The vision

• The new youth training system will form a key part of the wider education and skills landscape. It will better match the needs of young people, employers and the wider economy.
• Youth training will provide a high quality parallel route to the traditional academic pathway, with opportunities for professional education and training that will facilitate progression to sustained employment, an apprenticeship or further education.
• It will be centred on the career aspirations and needs of young people, offering an innovative and engaging curriculum, and will be a conduit to support their ongoing career development.
• Employers will actively engage in the system, through designing its content and delivery, to support the development of well-qualified and skilled workforce that can facilitate business and economic growth.
• Our aspiration is that this new system will be recognised both nationally and internationally by employers, further and higher education providers, young people, parents and guardians, for its quality, flexibility and relevance.

The new youth training strategy should be fully implemented by September 2016.

The policy commitments laid out in the strategy are categorised into four themes:

The first, core features of the youth training system, outlines the core features that will underpin the new youth training system, highlighting young people can access a new baccalaureate-style curriculum that delivers a breadth of skills and knowledge at level 2 and integrates structured work based learning.

The second, supporting young people, highlights support measures to help young people successfully complete their training and progress into employment or professional and technical training at a higher level.

The third, delivery and employer engagement structures, sets out proposals for delivering the new youth training system, including new structures to allow employers to inform curriculum content for their sector.

The fourth, ensuring quality, sets out a range of measures designed to ensure that the highest standards of quality for training are maintained.

There are two routes that trainees can pursue: the trainee can either access a broad based baccalaureate style professional technical award at level 2 while in employment or can access to same when unemployed but with structured work based learning.

Next steps

The department’s 2015/16 budget allocation for its existing youth training programmes at level 2 is approximately £55 million, which the department hopes to sustain.  The next stage is for the department to pilot the key aspects of the new youth training system in advance of the formal implementation in September 2016. The Youth Policy and Strategy Division in the department secured £7.5million from the Executive Change Fund to test the new pilots. These pilots will commence in September 2015.