The Government Science and Engineering (GSE) profession's learning and development strand provides science and engineering professional development support for people working in government. To maintain science and engineering as a core part of government skills and capability, we need to continue investing in our people. The profession is looking to increase the amount of science and engineering learning offers that are available to government users, from those who are new to technical topics all the way to experts. We want to make our learning more accessible, ensuring it can be used by civil, public and crown servants alike and accommodates different learning styles and personal circumstances. Opportunities for learning and development range from an online personal development tool, to on-the job placements and secondments, and post graduate level apprenticeships in Systems Thinking.
The key underpinning document for learning and development in government is the GSE career framework. This framework highlights the wide range of potential GSE careers and the 4 GSE job families:
- GSE Affiliate
- GSE Cross-Discipline
- GSE Specialist
- GSE Deep Specialist
It explains the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to be an effective scientist or engineer within a government context and provides a career anchor to the GSE profession for individuals not currently in science or engineering roles. This framework will be refreshed in 2021 GSE to ensure technical skills are known and understood and associated guidance produced for departments, managers and individuals on using the GSE technical skills.
One of the profession's key learning support offers is the GSE skills assessment tool. This is an interactive online platform enabling users to track their development against the GSE technical skills outlined in the career framework. Users are able to easily assess their level of each skill and are signposted relevant learning opportunities to support further development. Collaboration across departments and professions has created this catalogue of relevant science and engineering learning. There is ongoing work to increase promotion of the GSE skills assessment tool and its ease of use. In the longer term, the profession will continually update the tool based on member feedback and the vision is that the GSE skills assessment tool will help with understanding what learning gaps exist and need to be filled by further learning.
The profession will also facilitate stronger links to scientific and engineering professional bodies and professional development opportunities for members. This provides external recognition for our members will be achieved through launching clear routes to registration and chartership with key science and engineering professional bodies. We will continually review the offer and reach out to more professional bodies to ensure inclusivity.
A Science & Engineering 101 learning offer will also be released which will begin to provide ground level skills in science and engineering to people across government. Uptake and completion of courses will be monitored, and as time goes on, the offer will be adapted and added to accordingly.
