Citation
(2004), "UK news", Education + Training, Vol. 46 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2004.00446cab.005
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
UK news
Young people in 1,000 secondary schools will benefit from a new service to bring business thinking into the heart of the school curriculum. The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) has unveiled a £16 million enterprise-adviser service to help schools to meet the challenge of changes to the 14-19 curriculum, whereby work-related learning will be a statutory requirement for all pupils at Key Stage 4, from September 2004. The service will see more than 100 enterprise advisers recruited to work with head teachers to forge and strengthen ties between schools and businesses. They will work to ensure that young people have good work-based experience that will improve their enterprise and employability skills. In addition, the advisers will have access to development funds for additional resources, materials or services to support enterprise development in schools.
Mark Haysom, LSC chief executive, said:
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This is a tremendous initiative which will give young people a real taste of work and the world of business. The whole thrust of education is to develop young people to their full potential. Giving them good work-based work experience is an important part of this. Young people need to experience for themselves the opportunities that exist in the workplace and the skills they need to succeed.
He continued:
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Encouraging close relationships between schools and local employers is vitally important if we are to tackle the skill shortages we face in Britain. Working together we can ensure that young people leave school with the right skills for future employment.
The service will operate through 12 lead LSCs with either the education-Business Link consortium or a member organization. A key partner, National Education Business Partnership Network chief executive Mike McCann, said:
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We welcome this additional resource aimed at improving and extending business-linked services to schools. Education-business partnerships will work with enterprise advisers together with our other partners in education-Business Link consortia, to help to make this a success.