The government will host a special summit at the end of this month to launch a new ‘skills partner’ programme with employers to help develop technical and vocational education reforms.

The Department for Education announced that the Skills Summit event will take place on November 30.

The education secretary will lead the event in London, which is backed by the Confederation of British Industry.

The summit will “see the launch of a new partnership between employers and government to deliver a skills revolution”, it said.

“The skills partner programme will see employers working with government to design and deliver reforms to technical and vocational education, so that British businesses have the home-grown skills they need to compete globally.”

It is clearly very early days, as the LinkedIn group on which the announcement was made had just nine followers at the time it was published.

“A skills partnership – between government and business – can create a skills revolution,” said Justine Greening. “It’s time to set ourselves a collective challenge: to develop our homegrown talent.”

The Skills Partner page on LinkedIn also explains that the summit “will help people, communities and businesses to achieve their potential.

“We are creating a world-class technical and vocational education system that will be as prestigious as our leading universities, creating opportunities to help everyone reach their potential, regardless of their background. “We are working with employers and education providers to design and deliver these reforms so that British businesses have the home-grown skills they need to compete globally.”

It advises people to follow the page for updates on the summit and more information on how to register your organisation’s interest in the programme.

The extent to which employers will be involved with policy reform remains to be seen, but it seems to be the government’s latest attempt to get employers involved in skills training.

Employers have previously been encouraged to help design new apprenticeships through the Trailblazer programme.

The skills minister Anne Milton referred to the event during her speech at the AoC conference in Bimingham today, during which she pleaded with sector leaders for closer collaboration over technical education reforms after years of turbulence that have “put too much distance between us”.

“At the Skills Summit later this month we will be focusing on developing our partnership with employers,” she said. “Today, I’d like to talk about our partnership with you.”

The CBI declined to comment.

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