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Sponsored by: Islamic Help The Griffin Report Invest in the
human spirit The true essence of charity is not about handouts. It’s about giving people the means and opportunities to improve the quality of their lives so they are not dependent on others. At Islamic Help, a lot of our
work revolves around providing emergency aid to those who have been affected by natural or man-made disasters and don’t have the means to provide for themselves. In parallel with that
approach, we have adopted a ‘hands-up’ philosophy to give communities the tools, training and start-up resources to allow them to become self- sufficient. This philosophy allows
those at, or near, the bottom of the economic ladder – for example, a third of Tanzania’s population survives on £7 a month – to climb a few rungs towards self-sufficiency. Our livelihood programmes
have encompassed poverty- stricken and vulnerable families in Bangladesh and Tanzania by helping them establish business ventures, ranging from small shops and dress- making to honey production and rickshaw taxi services. In Pakistan, women who
were victims of acid attacks and shunned by society have been reintegrated in their communities, after embracing the entrepreneurial ethos to establish themselves as shopkeepers. Even in Bosnia, the
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regarded as a handout but as an investment in the human spirit. The returns may not be immediately obvious but the dividends are invaluable.
Invest in our livelihood projects today. Call 0121 446 5682 or see
www.islamichelp.org.uk.
20 CHAMBERLINK March 2018
Degree apprenticeships are in the Aston University DNA: Mark Smith and Professor Helen Higson.
The statement of intent could not be clearer. “Our mission is to be the UK’s leading university for business and the professions.” The words belong to Professor
Alec Cameron, vice-chancellor at Aston University, and provide a telling insight into new programmes of learning on the Aston campus which could prove key to helping transform the economy of the West Midlands and further afield. As Birmingham’s jobless rate
increases to 5.5 per cent amid long-held fears that skills shortages continue to hold back the economy, Aston University is proving a standard-bearer for a new approach to apprenticeships at a time when underperforming productivity is still a major issue for UK industry as a whole. Or, as Professor Helen Higson,
provost and deputy vice-chancellor at Aston, told Chamberlink: “There is a mismatch between supply and demand – it is not the students’ fault – they were being encouraged to go to university when employers didn’t want to put money in. “The background was a skills shortage and a feeling that universities were churning out the wrong sort of people. Universities
‘Aston University is proving a standard-bearer for a new approach to apprenticeships’
are very good at looking inward and designing programmes that they want to design. We have always looked outward and looked for what graduates are needed and where.” At Aston, it’s all hands to the
pump to help tackle the supply and demand mismatch – and ease a skills shortage which continues to cast a shadow over the economic prosperity of entire regions of the UK, including Birmingham. The launch of degree
apprenticeships at Aston in 2015 – the first university in the country to grasp the nettle – comes at a critical juncture for an economy still plagued by a skills gap which has huge implications for the potential future growth of the West Midlands. On skills and the labour market,
the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce’s Birmingham Economic Review 2017 noted: “The skills profile of the city’s residents has been a cause of concern for some time, with Birmingham residents less likely to have high level qualifications and more likely
to have low or no qualifications than residents of other major cities and the UK overall.” Against that alarming
background, the degree apprenticeships available at Aston, which have already attracted national attention at Government level and inspired other UK campuses to follow suit, could prove a template for a new approach to the needs of employers in the post-Millennium era. Professor Higson says: “It is a
natural thing that we would be a leader with degree apprenticeships – it is in our DNA. Aston was created by the employers of the area in 1895, and was fundamentally a technical school – they founded it because they couldn’t find the right employees. “That is our legacy and our
relationship with employers is incredibly strong. A university is not an ivory tower – that is certainly not true in the case of Aston. Forty per cent of our students are from low participation neighbourhoods, 94 per cent are
Contd on page 21...
Against an alarming background of skills shortages, the degree apprenticeships available at Aston University have already attracted national attention at Government level and inspired other UK campuses to follow suit. This could prove a template for a new approach to the needs of employers in the post-Millennium era, as Chamberlink’s award-winning columnist Jon Griffin discovered.
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