COP26
BOOSTING SKILLS TRAINING IN SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRIES By Julie Kapsalis The national and international attention around the forthcoming COP26 brings a valuable opportunity for colleges and employers to come together to try to address some of the skills challenges around development (and in turn economic development) in related sectors. Chichester College Group (CCG) and FE Sussex successfully led a consortium across eight further education and sixth-form colleges, in partnership with Sussex Chamber of Commerce as the lead employer representative body, in a bid to boost skills training in sustainable industries. The outcome is we have recently secured more than £7 million funding as part of the Government’s Local Skills Improvement Plans and Strategic Development Fund pilots.
Collectively we identified six crosssector priority areas where we need to develop capacity and expertise in skills: construction (decarbonisation agenda); horticulture and agriculture (food production and visitor economy); creative, IT and digital; engineering and electric vehicle infrastructure development; hydrogen and alternative energy production techniques (looking at waste and water); and carbon literacy (particularly in terms of raising awareness of opportunities within the sector with young people). The bid responds to the carbon neutral agenda (post-2020 Paris agreement), the forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, and the Government’s targets for carbon neutral operation by 2035 – and our own strategic objectives:
❛❛ The funding will enable us to
invest in specialist new teaching facilities across the eight colleges ❜❜
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