The Isle of Wight College is celebrating the announcement of a new Business Centre as part of the ‘skillslabs’ project funded by the Department for Education, as well as promoting details of an introductory event coming up in March.
The emphasis of this project, born from the White Paper ‘Skills for Life’ in January 2021, is for businesses to inform skills training and education for the future. What the college doesn’t have they will create for all ages, stages and abilities.
The college is hosting a 1-day event where specialists from marine technology, Net Zero and digital futures industries will be on hand to discuss the future needs of skills training and education for business.
This exciting new regional project is led by Fareham College and is in partnership with 5 other colleges and professional partners in the Solent region. Having secured funding from the Department for Education’s Strategic Development Fund for the design and development of 2 new Business Centres, it has been announced that these will be based at Fareham College and the hub at the Isle of Wight College.
The key aim of the Business Centre is to improve economic activity, particularly for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and micro-businesses. With access to business skills specialists, the new Business Centre will support SME growth, developing the region’s expanding technology sectors and creating a step-change in the capacity to improve clean growth and carbon reduction, digital futures, and marine technology.
The Isle of Wight ‘skillslabs’ Business Centre, due for completion in May 2022, will be a welcome asset to local employers. The Business Centre will act as a ‘hub’ providing employers with better access to the training they require, when and how they need it. The Solent region has good levels of entrepreneurship and small business start-up but a disproportionally high level of small business failure. We aim to address this.
The Isle of Wight ‘skillslabs’ event on 3rd March is designed to introduce local employers to this new and dynamic brand and upcoming business centre based at the Isle of Wight College. At the event, attendees will be able to meet the industry lead for this project along with the Principal of The Isle of Wight College, Debbie Lavin CBE; Director of Business Centres, Beverley Poole and a representative of the Hampshire Chamber of Commerce.
Specialist speakers for the event include Conrad Manning for Marine Technology (10:00), Astrid Davies for Net Zero (12:00) and David Taylor for Digital Futures (14:00). This is set to be an exciting start to the development of the business centres and future skills in the region. The aim is for highly skilled workforces, new businesses incubating great ideas, innovation and all whilst supporting the economic development of the region.
The ‘skillslabs’ event is free to attend, refreshments will be available, and businesses will be able to sign up to be a part of the future industry boards that will meet regularly at the business centres.
Book your place with Eventbrite – you can attend in person or online, as the event will be live streamed.
A little investigation shoows that, like all the present government’s announcements, things are not quite what they seem.
The fund is £65M, itself small change in terms of the skills and education investment the country needs. It is to be shared between 18 projects, each of which comprises many localities/communities (in our case, 10 of them), and – here’s the best bit – all the cash, including the revenue element, must be spent by May THIS YEAR.
So it’ll cover the costs of an introductory shindig and after that we’re on our own – again.