If someone were to ask me what the greatest defining factor in all our lives is, without hesitation I would answer ‘Education’. Not only does it affect the direction of our working life and future earnings potential, it also shapes our personality and affects greatly the part we play in society.
In the past many people felt that the role of education fell purely to the teachers and parents, but it is clearly in the interests of the business community to have well educated and relevantly trained people of all ages to provide a quality workforce. So I believe it is crucial for business and schools to work closely together to ensure
that young people receive the best education possible.
When I took over as chair of Business in the Community’s Education Leadership Team in 1999 it was abundantly clear that there was a huge amount of activity, but much of it was unfocused and there was a significant duplication of effort. So we decided to concentrate on a small number of activities within three core areas: basic skills, employability and leadership.
Our objective was to develop ‘killer products’, which, if successful at the pilot stage, could be replicated elsewhere.
Examples include:
Right to Read, a project which began its life as a direct result of a Seeing is Believing visit in the North of England and is now being rolled out nationally and integrated with other partner-reading programmes where they have been established successfully – such as in London.
Partners in Leadership, which has become an enormous success and linked nearly 6,000 headteachers with senior business men and women across England and Wales.
Teach First, recruiting top grade graduates who spend the first two years of their careers working as teachers in inner London schools where teacher shortages are greatest. In its first year it attracted over 1,300 applications from graduates at top UK universities for the 200 positions on offer in 40 schools across the capital.
Workwise, which has been developed, in response to recent research amongst the business community, to help address the lack of soft skills amongst school leavers; in particular those relating to inter-personal, communications, customer interaction skills, teamworking and flexibility.
So, much is being done but there is still much to do. Business and education have worked very much in isolation of each other. There was often a deep feeling of mistrust, but things are changing now. Put simply I believe they have to change, we have to work together if we are going to help create the kind of society and equality of opportunity we would all hope for. To get there we must grasp the opportunity to bring together the skills of both sectors if we are really going to deliver benefit to the end consumer, the children in schools.
Richard Handover is chairman of WH Smith. He is also chair of Business in the Community’s Education Leadership Team.
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