25 Jul 2005
Cogent and Employers prepare an "Expression of Interest"
The government has launched the National Skills Academies Prospectus. It gives employers the opportunity to take an active part in developing a skilled and competitive UK workforce. Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, said: "Now, two years on from the first Skills White Paper, we should take stock and celebrate the significant progress that has been made in addressing the skills challenges we face. “We also need to look forward and recognise the challenges ahead and agree our priorities in tackling them.”
The skills prospectus invites employers to work through colleges, universities and other training providers to set up more skills academies such the fashion/retail academy set up by Arcadia Group.
A proposal for a National Nuclear Skills Academy has been developed under the supervision of the Nuclear Skills Advisory Group, and funded by the North West Development Agency, over the period from 2002 up to the present time.
A Business Plan for the Skills Academy and for the Nucleus project was passed by the Nuclear Skills Advisory Group at a meeting on 21 July. The Group emphasised the importance of the Academy as a national resource, for the whole industry and that it should become a wide partnership of industry employers across the supply chain. Nucleus is to be a centre for engineering training, building on existing provision including the Gen II Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE), in West Cumbria.
Cogent is working with a group of employers for a Nuclear National Skills Academy in preparing the “Expression of Interest”. The main role of the National Nuclear Skills Academy will be broadly to provide high quality, cost-effective and efficient skills development from school to first degree level, to meet the needs of the nuclear industry.
While the industry does not face a skills crisis at the moment, employers are agreed that skills development is needed now in order to meet the challenges of the future.
Liz Rooney, Acting Chief Executive for Cogent, said: “This is an exciting development and we are working closely with nuclear employers to draw up plans for an Academy which will meet their particular needs.
“The government has made it clear that there is no single blueprint for what academies should look like - but they must be demand led and our challenge is to ensure that employers get up-to-date, high quality skills solutions that meet needs both now and, critically for the nuclear industry, in the future.”
www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/nsaprospectus/
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