IER News & blogs

The Secretary of State has announced six new Opportunity Areas in England, where they will focus the Department for Education’s energy, ideas and resources on providing children and young people with the chances and choices to fulfil their potential. The Opportunity Areas that were announced were West Somerset, Blackpool, Derby, Oldham, Scarborough and Norwich.

Warwick IER hopes to engage in further dialogue and practice developments given its track record in labour market intelligence and information, careers policy, research and practice.

New report for the Public Policy Institute for Wales identifies ways of harnessing employment opportunities in growth sectors in order to encourage the creation of sustainable employment opportunities which offer prospects for career progression.

Williams E. and Green A. (2016) New Directions in Employment Policy. Cardiff: PPIW.

Dr Clare Lyonette is the co-author of a new book which has just been published by Routledge, including chapters from academics and practitioners on the impact of the recession and austerity policies in work-life balance policies and practices, particularly how they affect our ability to achieve the triple agenda of individuals' work-life balance and wellbeing, workplace effectiveness and social justice.

A chapter co-authored by Clare highlights recent research on flexible working arrangements and how they are being used by public sector organisations in the UK to manage austerity. It also discusses some implications of these developments in 'new ways of working'

Lewis, S., Anderson, D., Lyonette, C., Payne, N. and Wood, S. (2016) Work-Life Balance in Times of Recession, Austerity and Beyond. London and New York: Routledge.

Dr Deirdre Hughes OBE, IER's Principal Research Fellow,was invited by the Chair of the Education Select Committee to facilitate a breakout session on the theme of 'Employability and Functional Skills' at their conference on 14 September. More than 100 guests attended a series of breakout sessions, during which a number of subjects arising through the Committee’s inquiry were discussed. These included primary and secondary assessment, parental engagement, social mobility in education, employability and functional skills, standards, behaviour and discipline, educating outdoors, expressive arts and creativity, and wellbeing and mindfulness.The conference finished with a keynote speech from academic and broadcaster Professor Mary Beard.

More information on the Education Select Committee Conference.

The narrative study led by Professor Jenny Bimrose with colleagues from IER and partners in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy and Poland has been published by Cedefop who commissioned the research.

The report draws both on literature review and an original collection of stories from biographical interviews of individuals from seven European countries. The narrative accounts describe the wide variety of experiences with initial and further education. The analysis focuses on motivations for learning (or not) and the findings confirm that early negative experiences with schooling have a scarring effect inhibiting workers’ willingness to re-engage in education later in life. Nevertheless, many low-educated adults were found to command a variety of skills, which they have developed in the work context.