'Building Bridges' conference
LEAD ORGANISATION
PROJECT SUMMARY
'Building Bridges' was a one-day conference that took place at Lane End Conference Centre in March 2010, organised on behalf of Progress South Central by Moving Ambition Ltd. The idea for the conference emerged from the findings and recommendations of the earlier LLN-sponsored project Developing links to Higher Education study from Building Services Engineering qualifications delivered in schools.
The conference was designed to attract academics, industry employers, trade associations, Trade Union representatives and funding bodies to explore, improve and potentially work together to create new and appropriate higher education progression opportunities for the Building Services Engineering industry. Additional aims were to examine and improve progression links between the vocational pathways within schools and colleges to higher education awards and to foster networking opportunities and closer working relationships between industry and higher education.
The programme for the day included a presentation from Richard Allen, Chief Executive of Moving Ambition, of the results of both industry and education research into the services further and higher education establishments provide in advancing the personnel and training needs of the Building Services Engineering sector. Graham Manly, Director of Gratte Brothers and President of the Heating and Ventilating Contractors' Association, then presented industry reaction to the research findings and the HE response to the conclusions of the research was given by Andrzej Ordys and Claire Arbon of Kingston University. Keith Marshall, Chief Executive of SummitSkills, the Sector Skills Council for Building Services Engineering, spoke about what the SSC is doing to bring employers in the sector and the education community closer together. The final presentation was given by Tony Thomas, Visiting Professor of Work-based Learning for the Building Services Engineering sector at London South Bank University.
IMPACT
34 delegates attended the conference, 16 from either universities or colleges of FE and 18 drawn from employers and sector representative organisations. The original objective for the range of delegates to represent an effective balance between industry and educational personnel was therefore broadly met.
Feedback from the delegates was positive. 70% of those feeding back felt that the day had helped them gain a better understanding of the scope and guidance on content in providing courses at Level 4 and above in Building Services Engineering. All the representatives from organisations in the Building Services Engineering industry fed back that they now had a better appreciation of the value of closer relationships with HE institutions.
As a result of the conference, 34 areas for priority attention were identified surrounding the relationship between HE and Building Services Engineering, suggesting that a conference forum of this type was long overdue. Following the conference, these 34 points were drawn together in a positioning paper that highlighted areas for change and improvement in the manner in which the sector works with FE and HE. This paper was subsequently well received by the sector skills council SummitSkills and by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.