Successes and impact - 2014 round up

As we charge towards Christmas it’s hard to believe that the first term of the current academic year is almost gone. That’s what we find – no sooner has the previous year been completed then the new one is upon us, and we don’t often get the chance to reflect on our successes and impact. In fact, in the year ended August EDT provided more young people with STEM industry related experiences than ever, and we have been feeding back to stakeholders the impact reports.

This year has got off to a flying start as well, with our Industrial Cadets team now in place and starting to make an impact. In fact, Industrial Cadets is now getting talked about more widely which is great and also very timely.

I attended the launch of a report from UKCES the other week called Growth through People, and one of the 5 recommended actions focuses on employers engaging with education and young people, which is of course where our expertise lies. Another area of focus was on employers taking the lead on skills with government playing an enabling role.

I have to say that there is a huge amount of activity taking place in the skills arena at present, which is generally a good thing. Apart from our Employer Ownership Project with UKCES, there are also several larger Industrial Partnerships (eg Auto, Aero, Science, ...) which represent groups of employers in these key sectors developing and implementing a range of activities to address skills - right through from young talent to the existing workforce. We need to make sure that we engage with these partnerships wherever we can, as it makes complete sense that the wheel is not re-invented.

Having said that, there continue to be new initiatives popping up at regular intervals. Many of these are time bound and don’t clearly fit within a continuum of experiences that young people need. We in EDT need to keep reminding our stakeholders that quality and track record leading to meaningful impact will provide the best long term value.

I wish everyone a happy festive season and look forward to an exciting and busy 2015!