Professional & Personal Development - Is the Pressure too Much?
Every year an international comparison of education in industrialised countries is published by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), providing a snapshot of trends where education is concerned. The “mantra” of the OECD is “better policies for better lives”. Some of the statistics relating to education across the UK show that from the age of three, there are very high levels of take-up for pre-school education and childcare in the UK, higher than almost any other developed country. The OECD research also shows that students in the UK pays the highest level of tuition fees in the industrialised world, part from, of course, the United States. And as graduates in the UK are younger, the average age being 23, it is the youngest in the OECD countries, yet teachers are getting younger - many of them only a few years older than the students they teach. Key subjects such as Maths and Science do not feature high on the list of university choices compared to other countries who contributed to the OECD study.
Yet, it is the study on adults and learning that provides an fascinating insight into the way in which skills can sometimes over take qualification. More education does not automatically translate to better skills, better jobs, better lives. The OECD study shows that success is increasingly about building skills beyond formal education. And this can be seen within the private housing sector in the UK. Only until very recently did the devolved countries make it mandatory for letting agents to be “trained” or “qualified”. In England, the 3 disciplines (letting and estate agents along with block managers) are not required to hold a mandatory qualification, yet we bear witness every day to very successful estate agents, letting agents and block managers. For them it was their chosen “profession”, and they excel; they have a diverse skill set - people skills, listening skills, communication skills, the ability to negotiate, delegate, mediate, empathise, sympathise, problem-solve and of course, sell. Yet very few agents on the high street are qualified. In a room of 100 agents most of them are quite capable of answering quite technical questions which sit around the day to day running of an agency or very complex elements of law, but they just haven’t “underpinned” their knowledge with a qualification. Is the pressure too much to be qualified in a sector that has no formal “entry level” ? Where does this leave a person with 30 years of business expertise and acumen, who up until now, has been very successful without a qualification? Effective links between learning and work is where this starts and ends for a sector that plays such a pivotal role in society. It is the work-based learning - “proof of the pudding”, as I like to call it, that matters. Developing hard skills, with the use of technology through real-life experience. This strengthens the relevance of learning and makes it a much more positive experience for all involved. And it is here that we hope to allow learners to have the opportunity to cement their knowledge through blended learning without having a negative impact on their family, social and working lives. We work with adult learners and we show that they too can benefit from improved technical skills and knowledge.
Our wish for our learners is that they put their existing skills to excellent use and come to a realisation that they had what it takes all along.
Susie Crolla MD