Cultivating partnerships between employers and education
An innovative new careers pilot will champion collaboration between schools and business in Gateshead. Kim Smith, North East LEP Regional Lead: Education & Enterprise, explains more.
The North East LEP is delighted to have secured funding for the Building Education & Enterprise Partnership (BEEP) pilot.
The innovative pilot will test what works best when encouraging collaboration between schools and business on a local, place-based approach to careers.
The pilot will take place in Gateshead secondary and SEN schools. We have employers signed up from across many of our key sectors, including Procter & Gamble, MGL Group, the Civil Service, Invest North East, and FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies.
The North East is an exciting place to be with many opportunities for our future workforce, but we need to build the career aspirations of our young people from an early age.
It is vital that we ensure the next generation understands the future job opportunities and the emerging skills required – the earlier this happens, the more effective this will be. We all have a role to play in ensuring that young people are equipped with the knowledge and skills to build our economy and benefit from more and better jobs, as set out in our Strategic Economic Plan.
It is our responsibility to provide the young people of Gateshead with first hand exposure to the range of progression pathways available, be that continuing with the academic route and remaining at sixth form college to progress A-levels, or exploring technical education routes through T-levels, a traineeship or an apprenticeship.
We recognise that the Skills White Paper put employers at the heart of the technical education so this pilot will help us by evaluating how best we can encourage and sustain the engagement of employers in the careers agenda.
The pilot, which has the full support of Gateshead Council and local MPs, will allow us to test what information and resources employers need to effectively engage with schools and support them in the design and delivery of their career plans.
This will allow employers to be able to truly play that active and pivotal role in the technical education agenda by cultivating mutually beneficial partnerships between employers and the schools.
Engagement in this pilot presents a unique opportunity to foster a collaborative approach between all of the businesses supporting Gateshead schools through the Enterprise Adviser Network to ensure that our young people can benefit from meaningful employer encounters. Doing this will impact positively upon our young people’s aspirations, their positive destinations from school, the skills achieved and ultimately the regional economy.