{"id":486,"date":"2025-10-06T08:58:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T08:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/?p=486"},"modified":"2025-10-08T08:55:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T08:55:38","slug":"the-politics-of-skills-presentation-to-nornet-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/06\/the-politics-of-skills-presentation-to-nornet-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"The politics of skills \u2013 Presentation to Nornet 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ghazal Vahidi and I had the privilege of presenting our research on education and skills policy to the <a href=\"https:\/\/nornet2025.is\/\">5<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0International Conference on Transitions, Careers and Guidance<\/a> in Iceland last week.  <\/p>\n<p>In the presentation we drew on our paper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/02680939.2025.2498893#abstract\">Comparing the conservative and labour party\u2019s proposals for skills: what\u2019s the problem represented to be?<\/a> to talk about the problematic dominance of human capital theory in the education and skills policies of both of the main political parties in the UK. <\/p>\n<p>In the presentation we set out our analysis of two key policy documents: the Conservative government\u2019s White Paper\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/skills-for-jobs-lifelong-learning-for-opportunity-and-growth\">Skills for Jobs: Lifelong Learning for Opportunity and Growth<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and the Labour Party\u2019s\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/labour.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/WR-16813_22-Labour-Skills-Council-report-Edit-19-10-22.pdf\">Learning and Skills for Economic Recovery, Social Cohesion and a More Equal Britain<\/a><\/em> and used Bacchi\u2019s \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.adelaide.edu.au\/graduate-research\/ua\/media\/162\/wpr-summary.pdf\">What\u2019s the Problem Represented to Be?<\/a>\u2019 approach as an analytical approach.  <\/p>\n<p>We argued that the UK\u2019s consensus around skills remains reliant on Human Capital Theory after 30\u2009years, despite the lack of evidence that this approach effectively addresses social inequalities or enhances economic productivity. We also highlighted how economistic assumptions have consistently shaped educational outcomes and advocated for a more holistic approach to education policy that integrates broader social and economic considerations, aiming to balance economic productivity with personal development and social empowerment.<\/p>\n<p>This is what we had to say&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-14fc3a5a-a928-435e-a793-7cb813cf4108\" href=\"https:\/\/adventuresincareerdevelopment.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/wpr-presentation-final.pptx\">WPR Presentation-final<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/adventuresincareerdevelopment.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/wpr-presentation-final.pptx\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-14fc3a5a-a928-435e-a793-7cb813cf4108\">Download<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ghazal Vahidi and I had the privilege of presenting our research on education and skills policy to the 5th\u00a0International Conference on Transitions, Careers and Guidance in Iceland last week. In the presentation we drew on our paper Comparing the conservative and labour party\u2019s proposals for skills: what\u2019s the problem represented to be? to talk about&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":487,"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions\/487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archi-trip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}