Connections make the world go round....

I recently wrote a piece for the magazine published by the Kent branch of the Federation of Small Businesses. It was a piece about my belief in building partnerships and relationships with employers to ensure that our College delivers the skills wanted by employers and the local economy. 

For those of you who don't read the magazine, I've published the article in full here....

Connections are what make the world go round. From the personal to the professional, it’s the connections we build which help to define us. And in business there’s little difference, with many of the deals which are done, helped along by a professional’s network. 

We are building relationships with creative employers in Folkestone, helping deliver the skills required in the local economy

In the past links between business and education were clearly defined. For many years business worked in partnership with education providers, delivering high quality apprenticeships alongside institutions. That fell out of favour through the latter parts of the 20th Century, with many students taking a higher education pathway and getting a degree, as opposed to learning ‘on the job’ and gaining technical vocational skills.

That shift though, is now going full circle with a far greater emphasis being placed on real skills based learning. As a consequence, East Kent College has been working to build ever-stronger partnerships with many of the county’s major employers, while also identifying local skills needs. It’s certainly not easy to build a strategic partnership with a major employer, but they are far simpler to identify than the raft of small and medium sized businesses which make up the backbone of our economy. And in our communities, it is just those businesses which we need to begin engaging with in order to truly bridge the gap between industry and education. So I would ask you to consider what we can do to help your business, and what you could do to help a student into your industry. 

We are investing in our construction facilities to ensure we can help meet the skills shortage in the industry

If you’d like to find out more about building a partnership with East Kent College, get in touch with our business development team by calling 01843 605040