UK EDUCATION
Back to school for British business
Back to school for
As the likes of IBM, Deloitte and Unilever invest in the skills of tomorrow, Britain’s young talent is being inspired to contribute to the national prosperity. Against the backdrop of Brexit Britain, Relocate looks at how business is responding to government calls for its increased engagement in preparing the next generation for the world of work.
“M
y vision is for Britain to be a Great Meritocracy,” said Prime Minister Theresa May in a speech at the 2016 Conservative Party conference. Having
already identified education as one of her government’s first areas of major reform with her announcement that she intended to bring back grammar schools, Mrs May made clear her hope that British business would play a greater, and more active, role in the education and training opportunities of Britain’s future engineers, designers and CEOs.
British
Investing in people and communities “Businesses, large and small, are the backbone of our economies, and enterprise is the engine of our prosperity,” Mrs May asserted at the recent World Economic Forum, in Davos. “It is essential for business to demonstrate leadership. It means [the government] stepping up to a new, active role that backs businesses and ensures more people in all corners of the country share in the benefits of its success. And for business, it means doing even more to spread those benefits to more people, it means putting aside short-term considerations and investing in people and communities for the long term. “These are all things that I know the vast majority of businesses
do already. Not just by creating jobs, supporting smaller businesses, training and developing people, but also by working to give something back to communities and supporting the next generation.” This speech echoed the commitment Mrs May expressed at the
2016 CBI conference, when she challenged business to help drive improvements in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) education and training. The CBI speech came in the wake of the latest PISA test scores,
which assess the educational performance of pupils in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, with a particular focus on 15-year-olds’ attainment in science, reading and
40 | Re:locate | Spring 2017
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