More has to be done to support young people to be the voice of the FE sector, according to the director of the National Apprenticeship Service.

Speaking during her visit to EuroSkills 2018 in Budapest, Sue Husband said she had been almost as impressed by the calmness and resilience of the young people competing as by the skills they were demonstrating.

However, she said it was crucial to ensure a wider impact for skills competitions and international and national level. “We have 22 competitors here, but if you think of all the young people that could be experiencing this more broadly - we need to spread this more broadly and we need this to be up the agenda.”

Learning lessons

She explained it was crucial to learn from competitions like this and take the lessons back to the UK: “We know it takes us five days to produce what others can do in four - it is obvious we need to do more.”

“The first stage is to recognise the people that are at this level,” she added. “Employers are doing good things within businesses, but we need to do more of that as a society,” said Ms Husband. “I am hoping that when we get some of these young people back with medals around their neck, we will see them on the breakfast sofa with Steph McGovern. We need to celebrate them.”

“We need to do more with the young people, specifically those that compete. We need to give them more opportunity to be ambassadors for their skills. Young people need to be the voice and we need to get them into the conversation more.”

The director of the National Apprenticeship Service recalled the impact meeting young competitors at the WorldSkills competition in Abu Dhabi last year had on skills minister Anne Milton. “It is the young people themselves that do that.”