Informed Scotland Dec 15/Jan 16 – Everyone’s talking about learning & skills

.

Once again there was no festive respite… In fact the opposite was true, with education high on the political agenda it seems everyone in Scotland’s talking about learning and skills. It’s been a mammoth task to make sense of all the activity – Informed Scotland 37 is the biggest issue yet!

A number of major reports were published, in particular the Scottish Government’s National Improvement Framework for Scottish Education.

Then there was the OECD’s Improving schools in Scotland review, the extensive UKCES Employer Skills Survey and the first Developing the Young Workforce annual report.

There were also interesting reports from SCDI (with Royal Society of Edinburgh, ScotlandIS and BT) on Digital solutions to the productivity puzzle and Universities UK on the Supply and demand for higher level skills to mention a couple.

Skills shortages and gaps were highlighted again, with construction, forestry, hospitality, engineering and digital sectors raising particular concerns.

There was a plethora of statistical releases plus new resources, new courses, new centres of expertise and new projects. And look out for UCAS’s new Career Finder and an updated My World of Work from SDS.

As 2016 is Scotland’s Year of Innovation, Architecture & Design, some favourite innovations in this edition are Cumnock Academy and Ayrshire College’s Me2U work experience project, Lingo Flamingo language workshops to tackle dementia, and University of Edinburgh medical students’ You Can Be A Doctor website.

Our third annual Learning & Skills Hottest Topics list is included for a bit of light relief. See how many on the 2015 list you can predict before sneaking a look… There’s also a round-up of another busy year for Informed Scotland.

Become an Informed Scotland subscriber to keep on top of all the developments. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.