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Useful Links

Vocational Skills

Citizenship Skills

Literacy and Numeracy

Five Core Skills

Employability Skills

What do we mean by 'Essential' skills?

(Extract from Skills for Scotland: A Lifelong Skills Strategy)

• personal and learning skills that enable individuals to become effective lifelong learners

• literacy and numeracy

• the five core skills of communication, numeracy, problem solving, information technology and working with others

• employability skills that prepare individuals for employment rather than for a specific occupation

• essential skills that include all of those above

• vocational skills that are specific to a particular occupation or sector.

Evidence from sources such as Futureskills Scotland's Employers Skill Survey4 and the Scottish Funding Council's report Learning to Work5, show that employers expect potential employees to have skills that, in their view, they should have learned at school.

There is a significant number of adults in Scotland who do not meet employers' essential skills criteria and this is a key employability focus for colleges and the Community Learning and Development sector, in particular.

Equally, employers want people with the ‘softer', less definable, skills that are vital for the success of their organisation. There is no definitive list of these, which depends on type of job, level of responsibility and organisational culture, but include:

• effective time management

• planning and organising

• effective oral and written communication skills

• the ability to solve problems

• being able to undertake tasks or make submissions at short notice

• the ability to work with others to achieve common goals

• the ability to think critically and creatively

• the ability to learn and to continue learning

• the ability to take responsibility for professional development

• having the skills needed to manage, or be managed by, others (which draw on many of the other skills in this list).

The full report, from which this extract was taken can be viewed on The Scottish Government's website.

Useful Links

• UK Skills
• Worldskills International

Vocational Skills

• Skills Development Scotland: modern apprenticeships
• Skills in Scotland 2008
• Alliance of Sector Skills Councils - Scotland
• Futureskills Scotland
• Apprenticeships
• Careers Scotland
• Vocational Skills programme - Beacon Programme - excellence in local government
• Learning and Skills Council: Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVE)
• Vocational Learning (Learning and Skills Network)
• Vocational Learning Support Programme resource

Citizenship Skills

• HMIe ‘Citizenship in Scotland's Colleges' Nov 2006
• NIACE: Citizenship Materials for ESOL Learners in Scotland
• SQA: Citizenship
• SQA Citizenship worksheets
• LTS ‘Education for Citizenship in Scotland': a paper for discussion and development
• LSIS (Learning and Skills Improvement Service): Post-16 Citizenship website
• LSN (Learning Skills Network): Citizenship Uncovered
• CBBC Citizenship in Scotland
• Citizenship Foundation
• Global Dimension in the Curriculum - Scotland
• A Guide to Developing Citizenship Skills: Borders College (Nov 2005)
• citizED (England) - citizED is an organisation funded by the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA)

Literacy and Numeracy

• Communities of Practice in Adult Literacies (CoPAL)
• Community Learning and Development - Learning and Teaching Scotland
• Scottish Government: Adult Numeracy
• New Light on Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland: Evidence from the 2004 survey of the 1970 British Cohort Study
• Report on Scotland's Adult Literacy and Numeracy Strategy 2007/2008
• Learning and Teaching Scotland: Numeracy
• Adult Numeracy Core Curriculum
• BBC Skillswise: Numbers
• BBC Bitesize KS1 Numeracy
• BBC Key Skills: Application of Number
• Get On campaign: (England only) Help your child with homework
• Basic Skills Agency: Adult Numeracy Core Curriculum: Count On

Five Core Skills

The five core skills are:

• Communication
• Numeracy
• Problem Solving
• Using Information Technology
• Working with Others

Useful Links

• LTScotland Core Skills topic pages
• LTS Core Skills Analyser (macros may require set on PC)
• LTS Working with Others
• LTS Numeracy Core Skills
• LTS Communication Core Skills
• The Skills Strategy
• SQA Academy - Core Skills for the Future
• Curriculum for Excellence
• National Qualifications Online - Guidance on Core Skills and Links to Resources

Employability Skills

• UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) ‘Employability Skills'
• Generic Employability Skills (South West England Observatory)
• LTSN (now part of HE Academy) Hull University
• Graduate Prospects - What do Employers Want?
• Open University Careers: Employability Skills
• Employability Skills Explored - PowerPoint by LSN Employability Skills Project Team Apr 2008
• How to identify your work skills: University of Kent: Careers (Check out the interactive decision wheel)
• Skills Map: University of Kent: Careers
• How to develop and demonstrate the employability skills required by employers Word doc 5 pages: University Leeds
• Employability Skills Checklist: University of Southampton Careers Service

MASS – measuring and assessing soft skills

MASS is a Leonardo da Vinci, Transfer of Innovation project, partly funded by the Life Long Learning programme.

It aims to better understand and address the needs of young people, who disengage from training, education or employment. The focus is on the development of their soft skills. These are personal and social skills, which are needed for success in education and employment. Often you cannot learn these skills in school but you have to practise them in "real life". Many young people lack these skills - view further information.

One College's Essential Skills Journey

Ayr College shares a strategy for essential skills development and the potential this journey has for a sector wide professional dialogue -View the PDF.