Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority visits Coventry College
Promoting Skills of the Future
The Mayor engaged with a number of engineering and manufacturing companies and stakeholders ranging from the UK Battery Inudstrialisation Centre through to the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering. Coventry College has been engaging with businesses across all industries to help co-design curriculum to meet regional and national skills needs, stimulate industry placements and to ensure its resources are future proofed through its Skills of the Future initiative.
Businesses had the opportunity to lobby and influence the Mayor on key priorities including workforce development and the growing need for talent to be developed particularly in industry areas with ageing technical workforces.
In addition to the engineering showcase the College has, following the success of its Robot Day STEM initiative, been delivering Robot Clubs to its motor vehicle and engineering learners to enhance the skills they are developing, aiding them with the knowledge to work on systems which support autonomous vehicles into the immediate future. The Mayor was able to engage with a large number of learners who have been upskilling through the Robot Club and to meet with tutors who have been leading on the initiative.
Making a positive difference to our community
Following on from the visit to the Motor Vehicle and Engineering area, the Mayor toured the College’s Green Skills Retrofit Hub to shadow our WMCA award winning insulation bootcamp provision delivered in partnership with Westdale Midlands utilising funding from the WMCA. Our latest cohort of adult learners, many of whom have joined the training programme as previously unemployed were using Virtual Reality headsets to visualise retrofitting houses which the Mayor had a go at.
Employers and stakeholders who support the bootcamp, including housing association, Citizen, whom our adult learners have since gone on to help retrofit over 1000 homes across Coventry, reinforced their support for the bootcamp programme. Adam Denny, Asset Planning Manager at Citizen, said:
“As a member of the College’s Skills of the Future Panel, it was brilliant to attend the Green Skills Retrofit Hub at Coventry College during the visit from Mayor, Richard Parker. We’re proud of our partnership with Westdale and Coventry College to help train the next generation of retrofitters. The students get to work on retrofitting our homes after they have completed the bootcamp at the College which is a great opportunity for them to learn new skills on the job. At Citizen we are committed to working with our partners to make a positive difference to our customers and communities.”
Gaining the skills for well-paid jobs
Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands, said:
“Helping local people gain the skills to secure well-paid jobs and transform their lives is at the heart of what I’m working to achieve. Industries like engineering, green technology, and retrofit are growing rapidly in the West Midlands, and the skills bootcamps and training providers in our region are crucial in equipping people to thrive in these sectors.”
Carol Thomas, Principal and CEO of Coventry College said;
“We were delighted to host Richard Parker at Coventry College to showcase how we have used investment including from the Local Skills Improvement Fund and Strategic Development Fund to future proof our provision to meet growing industry skills needs from electric vehicle through to retrofit.
“We have prioritised meeting the needs of employers through our expansive Skills of the Future Panels where we are committed to utilising the expert views of employers to co-design and influence our curriculum and pathways.
“As an example, we have used the feedback from our Skills of the Future Panel in Construction to deliver multi-skills and insulation bootcamps to deliver a talent pipeline for industry to meet social decarbonisation housing targets. Most importantly, we are supporting local residents into work, with one example today including an adult learner who only three weeks before joining our bootcamp programme had been homeless but is now in a successful insulation installation role and excelling.”
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