SKILLS
Adam Stevenson, Managing Director of MBS
Derby College invests in skills
Fujitsu and Intel have launched an Innovation Hub at Derby College, which is set to put technology at the heart of learning for the college and its students. As part of the businesses’
commitment to developing IT skills in the UK, the new Innovation Hub – the ninth of its kind in the UK – will transform the learning experience for more than 400 students on degree programmes at the college. It will also support teacher development and provide a resource for the wider community. The Innovation Hub will be located in the college’s Roundhouse campus, on Pride Park. MBS, a Derby-based construction company which employs over 30 staff
‘The new Innovation Hub – will transform the learning experience for more than 400 students’
across all the construction trades, has also teamed up with the college to launch the MBS Construction Skills Academy. MBS, of Alfreton Road, specialises in residential construction and improvement work across the Midlands, in addition to providing planned and reactive commercial maintenance and project delivery throughout the UK. Students on a number of construction courses including brickwork,
joinery, plastering, electrical and plumbing at the college’s campuses on Pride Park will be invited to apply for the academy. Managing Director Adam Stevenson said: “The demand for maintenance
operatives or multi-skilled tradespeople is growing rapidly in the construction industry and our academy will concentrate on providing young people with broad skills that will be invaluable in their working lives.”
Apprentices buck the trend
Two young female apprentices have gained qualifications at an Ilkeston firm that makes bespoke building products. Sonja Eyre and Rosie Dales
started in autumn last year at Dales Fabrications and have gained their NVQ Level 2 in welding and fabrication - a trade usually dominated by men. They were the only women on
their course at Learning Unlimited, on Derby's Pride Park. And they are the first women to join Dales as apprentices from a non-engineering background. Twenty-two-year-old Sonja, of
Eastwood, has wanted a career in engineering since the age of 16. She worked at two branches of a
coffee house in Derby as a barista maestro before she wrote to Dales, which makes gutters, soffits, fascias and pipework, asking if she could be an apprentice. Twenty-three-year-old Rosie, of
Ilkeston, worked as a chambermaid but last year she volunteered for
40 business network February 2016
Sonja Eyre, left, and Rosie Dales
two weeks at Dales, enjoyed it and became an apprentice. She left the family home at Southampton to move to the company, at Crompton Road Industrial Estate, which was founded by her grandfather Frank, the current Chief Executive Officer. The firm, set up in 1977, is wholly
family-owned. Managing Director Karl Prosser
said: “Sonja and Rosie both took to welding very quickly and have become accomplished in their trade.”
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