Since the early 2000s, public spending on adult education has dropped by nearly one-third. Alongside that, employer spending on training has decreased by 27 pe cent per trainee since 2011.
This decline in training investment has occurred alongside a fall in participation. The number of publicly funded qualifications started each year by adults has dropped from nearly 5.5 million in the early 2000s to 1.5 million by 2020. And the average number of days of workplace training received each year is almost 20 per cent lower than in 2011.
These are eye-opening statistics. On the face of it they seem a cause for concern, but they require context. Some of the reduced government funding supported adult courses with modest returns. Additionally, subsidies for private training often went to training that would have happened anyway – a phenomenon economists call ‘dead weight’.
However, given the scale of the decline in training participation and ongoing concerns about skills shortages and low productivity it is worth considering how the existing skills system could be reformed and improved.
