Dudley College of Technology has become the latest vocational College to sign an educational partnership with Next Gen Makers to help engineering firms that engage with the College to better future proof skills within their organisation.
The College, along with the Black Country & Marches Institute of Technology of which it is a key stakeholder, recently signed the strategic partnership. Dudley College of Technology offers a variety of engineering apprenticeship courses ranging from level 2 to higher technical qualifications via the IOT.
Next Gen Makers helps UK manufacturing and engineering firms to become more successful at attracting and retaining talent within their apprenticeship schemes via benchmarking and best practice sharing as part of their Engineering Apprenticeships: Best Practice Programme. The company also recognises exemplar employers for engineering apprenticeships via a national employer Kitemark accreditation backed by leading manufacturing organisation Make UK.
The newly signed educational partnership will see Dudley College of Technology and Next Gen Makers working in close collaboration to enable engineering firms that engage with the College to benefit from accessing the Engineering Apprenticeships: Best Practice Programme and employer Kitemark – thus enabling them to add more structure to their apprenticeship schemes, deliver the best possible apprentice experience and become more attractive employers for aspiring engineers.
The partnership will also see Next Gen Makers assist Dudley College with reducing the cost of training the next generation of engineers within their workshops via exclusive discounts off industrial consumables through their business partner MSC Industrial Supply Co.UK. Dudley College will also tap into the vast engineering expertise of the MSC engineering team and Technology Centre, ensuring the knowledge of engineering tutors remains contemporary and in line with industry standards.
Neil Thomas Chief Executive and Principal of Dudley College of Technology said: “ We are committed to offering employers access to the best apprentices and apprentices’ access to jobs with the best employers, who will support their learning both on and off the job, so this partnership makes sense. By working closely together we hope to bring some of the technical expertise of MSC staff into the classroom, so that apprentices are benefiting from the most current business practices, allowing them to add more value in their own workplaces. “
Adam Tipper, Managing Director at Next Gen Makers adds: “We are very pleased to announce Dudley College of Technology and the Black Country & Marches Institute of Technology as our latest educational partner and look forward to developing a close working relationship with the engineering and apprenticeship teams at the college. Our focus is firmly set on proactively collaborating to benefit to the engineering firms that choose these two organisations as their engineering training provider.
“The UK engineering skills shortage is well known, and the sector is also being adversely affected by apprentice retention issues. This is a result of apprentices feeling unsatisfied with the quality of their experience within the apprenticeship scheme at their employer.
“However, engineering firms within our Engineering Apprenticeships: Best Practice Programme are bucking this trend via benchmarking and best practice sharing, learning from the successes of other engineering apprenticeship schemes across the UK, and improving their own as a result. Through this partnership, we aim to help more manufacturers to benefit from this knowledge sharing”.