3.5.3
Plain English Version
We need to improve education and skills for people with all levels of academic achievement. This includes schools, workplace training and lifelong learning.
We can plan to use the city centre as a focus for this learning. This may be through some physical form such as a new school or college or through a change in culture and outlook that the city centre plan is working to bring about. A skills strategy for Birmingham will only work where employers and workers buy into it for the long term. This means we need a culture of learning across the board, but especially one that most helps the least educated, those trapped in cycles of low achievement and aspiration.
Original Document
But education and skills need to be developed across the range of occupations and skills levels, not just for the higher level qualifications. This includes schools as well as facilities for workplace training and lifelong learning. A spatial plan for the city centre can help this process by providing a focus for this activity. This may be through some physical form such as a new educational facility or through the change in culture and outlook that the city centre plan is working to bring about. A skills strategy for Birmingham will only work where employers and workers buy into it on a long term and continual basis. A culture of learning is something that is required across the range of skills but impacts disproportionately on those at the bottom end of the skills market who are disengaged from education at an early age and are trapped in inter-generational cycles of low attainment and low aspiration.