AoC South West Conference
1st October 2008
It’s sunny in the South West
While the outlook economically in the UK is gloomy, AoC South West used their regional conference to demonstrate how to thrive in a changing world.
Hosted at the prestigious Met office on 1st October 2008, the valuable event highlighted the strengths of the FE College Sector, in particular partnerships with the region’s businesses.
Over 100 representatives from FE including college principals and senior managers, business representative organisations, Chambers and government agencies along with partners from the business community in the South West came together at The Met Office on October 1st to share in the success of colleges and businesses working together.
Using the live case study interviews with employers and employees, the impressive agenda played out on a centre stage, and included key note speeches from Peter Cloke Deputy Director GOSW, Paul Lucken, Skills Director of the Learning and Skills Council SW and Hannah Foster, HR Director and Prospective Conservative Candidate for Exeter.
Martin Doel, Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges gave the closing speech but not before break-out groups had joined together to prepare questions for a lively expert panel debate discussing business training issues.
The impact of the conference was further supported by the release that day of the South West FE Colleges Economic Impact Report. Viv Gillespie, Principal of City College Plymouth, highlighted some of key statistics in the report including the fact that in 2006/07 53,000 employees were sponsored to train at SW Colleges by their employers. Viv explained “Colleges are proving to be a major source of the regions employee development and make a very significant contribution to the region.”
Ian Munro, Regional Director AoC South West commented on the success of the day, “The day provided a great opportunity for SW Colleges to showcase their partnership with the regions business community and also demonstrate the College impact on the regions economy.”
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