EMPLOYABILITY AND SECURITY IN A FLEXIBLE GLOBAL LABOUR MARKET Policies reinforce problems Government policies, says Mr Edmonds, are only reinforcing the present problems. One of the government’s main objectives is to increase the number of young people receiving a university education from about 30 per cent at present to 50 per cent by 2010.‘A cynical interpretation of this policy is to say that the government is catering to the middle­England voter. Traditionally, Britain’s middle classes are interested in education, particularly in ensuring that their children receive a university education.’ There are, however, worries that the push to increase the number of people with degrees will affect the quality of university education. One way to meet the objective has been to redesignate the polytechnics that concentrated on higher-level vocational skills as universities.‘This was mainly a re-labelling exercise. But there is no sign that there is a general decline in university standards, which remain high.’ The real concern is that this exercise will divert investment from weaker educational areas into the university system. Another government initiative aims to tackle the problem of growing illiteracy. Considerable money has been spent on improving primary education(for five- to eleven­years-olds) and the result has been a substantial improvement at that level. Now the government plans to tackle secondary education(eleven- to sixteen-year-olds) by reducing class sizes, increasing the number of teachers and schools, and imposing more rigid central control over the curriculum. The focus during the| next five years will be on improving basic skills, with less emphasis on flexibility of subject choice compared with the past. But these government initiatives only address part of the problem. In most cases vocational training is left to people who are already employed, and the system is entirely voluntary. There is no legal basis to pressurise companies to spend money on training their workforce. ‘There is no sign of any change within industry. There is a close correlation between the size of company and the amount of training offered to employees: the larger the company, the more chance of training; the smaller the company, the fewer are the opportunities to receive training. Many believe that the solution is to compel companies to provide training by law. Just as we now have a minimum wage backed by law, we should have a minimum training requirement.’ There is significant resistance to this idea. Medium- and small-sized companies say that they cannot afford to train staff and see little or no economic return on such investments. The rapid turnover of staff also contributes to this attitude.‘Many companies reason as follows: why spend the money on training staff who then leave, giving competitors the benefit?’ But even the amount of training larger enterprises undertake is insufficient. Compared with its major industrial competitors, Britain has fewer people trained to craft or technical levels and the gap is widening. The business community strongly resists compulsory measures to change this situation, and the present(and previous) government is reluctant to upset business.‘Britain’s strong free market position is standing in the way. In general we believe that the employer should decide if training is needed.’ 32 © Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society