Our voice of business this month is:
Jenny Craig, Principal and CEO, Buckinghamshire College Group
Since I started in post as the new Principal and CEO of Buckinghamshire College Group I have spent that time getting to know staff and stakeholders from across the County – as well as making sure that I can find my way around our three campuses!! Two things that have struck me so far are how well connected to its community the College is and how passionate and supportive the staff are at ensuring that our students develop the key skills, knowledge and behaviours demanded by employers to ensure that they are first in the queue when it comes to taking the next step towards securing their dream job – we call this the ‘Bucks College Factor!’.
The College provides a wide range of high quality vocational, technical and professional courses from entry level all the way up to higher education enabling young people, apprentices and adults to develop and hone their skills and further their careers. I want to build on the strong reputation already developed by the College to cement our place in supporting Buckinghamshire to address key skills shortages both now and into the future.
One of the keyways in which we are directly addressing a number of key skills shortage areas is through the introduction of T Levels. For those who may not be familiar, T Levels are brand new two-year post-GCSE qualifications equivalent to 3 A Levels. They have been developed in collaboration with employers to ensure the content meets the needs of industry and combine high quality technical learning with the opportunity to apply that learning in the workplace through a 45 day industry placement. T Level students can progress into higher education, higher level apprenticeships or directly into employment.
In their first year of introduction, around 1300 students nationally enrolled onto a T Level qualification in 2020 increasing to around 5400 in the second year. The first cohort of students have just completed their T Level courses with over 92% achieving at least a Pass and over 34% achieving at Distinction or Distinction* level.
As a College we first introduced T Levels in September 2021 in Health (training the next generation of nurses and healthcare professionals), Education and Childcare (training the next generation of teachers and childcare professionals), Digital (training the next generation of programmers and software development professionals) and Science (training the next generation of laboratory scientists). For this year we are excited to build our T Level offer with the introduction of the T Level in Plumbing, another key skills shortage area, and more T Levels are being added all of the time.
We are always looking for additional opportunities for our students to gain exposure to employers whether through work experience, guest speakers or offering industry placements to support our T Level students. Current employers value the chance to shape the workforce of the future and use the T Level industry placement as a key part of their talent pipeline development process with many offering permanent roles to completing students. If any employers are interested in shaping the workforce of the future, please do contact Lucy Milton at LMilton@buckscollegegroup.ac.uk
I look forward to working with many local and national stakeholders as Buckinghamshire College Group continues to support Buckinghamshire in its drive for economic growth and prosperity for all. If anyone reading this blog would like to visit the College, discuss solutions to skills requirements and see the facilities please just contact me at JCraig@buckscollegegroup.ac – I would love to give you a tour. I feel privileged to be able to lead a College with so much potential for the future.
