Start’em young Chancellor Gordon Brown’s latest budget allocates £2m towards business education for young people. Not-for-profit organisation Young Enterprise will use the funds to deliver 23 enterprise summer schools to around 1000 pupils this year. The summer schools aim to help young people build a range of key skills, develop stronger links between business and schools and give pupils and students a better understanding of their future role and responsibility in the economy, says the Department of Education and Skills.
The budget also includes £40m to improve the employment prospects of low-skilled women by providing them with training and targeted career advice. Contact Dfes 020 7925 6789 www.dfes.gov.uk
Incentives to invest The government has launched a three-year scheme to promote voluntary giving to higher education providers from private donors to help generate additional income for the sector. Under the pilot project announced by the Department for Education and Skills and Universities UK, DfES will provide up to £7.5m to 27 higher education providers to match fund investment to increase income from private donors. Contact Lucy Canning, Dfes 020 7925 5373 www.dfes.gov.uk
BITC Revises approach Business in the Community has reviewed and updated its Business Action on Education programme. The programme’s mission is now “to help create tomorrow’s competitive workforce by inspiring and engaging businesses to work in partnership with schools to raise the levels of achievement of young people, especially those in disadvantaged circumstances”. The programme will focus on three priority themes: employability: business working with schools to design and deliver relevant, challenging and engaging approaches to enterprise learning enterprise: businesses working with schools to design and deliver relevant, challenging and engaging approaches to enterprise learning leadership and management: business and school leaders working together to enhance each other’s leadership and management skills. Contact Olivia Wirth, BITC 020 7566 8792 www.bitc.org.uk
BME boost BT’s Ethnic Minority Network hosted and organised a workshop for a group of young people from three London schools on March 14, as part of Business in the Community’s MERLIN Working in the City programme. The programme aims to inspire and raise aspiration of young people from Black and Minority Ethnic groups through interaction with professionals who can act as role models and provide advice about working in the city. Contact Steve Kelly, BT 020 7356 5000 www.bt.com
Positive energy Powergen has launched the Positive Energy School Awards to encourage primary school teachers to explore ideas about energy with their pupils through creative lessons. The programme, being rolled out in schools across the country to encourage children to engage in and benefit from the arts, will offer grants of £1,000 to the top ten participating schools. The company provides schools with free curriculum based resources containing detailed curriculum links, lesson ideas and case studies as well as posters. Contact Victoria Blake, Powergen 01623 781 518 www.positiveenergyawards.co.uk
Academy rewards Donors who contribute up to £2m to sponsor city academies in the UK might not be getting value for money, according to a report published by think tank New Philanthropy Capital on April 24.
The charity, which advises wealthy donors on which causes would make the most of their money says in On your marks: “there simply isn’t enough evidence to make a conclusive assessment on whether academies are good investment for donors. Academies show mixed results for their pupils. But there is enough evidence to raise doubts about their cost-effectiveness.”
NPC suggests that the debate over academies has obscured the other options open to those who want to donate money to education and sets out nine other possible options, such as spending their money on charities that work with children with special educational needs or those that tackle bullying. Contact Martin Brookes, NPC 020 7785 6317 https://www.thinknpc.org/
Briefing comments… New Philanthropy Capital certainly grabbed attention with its to-the-heart-of-the-matter question – what does £2m buy you in terms of educational outcomes? Of course the cynics would say that funders put up their share of the money not to improve schools but to get into the House of Lords.
Actually, that’s not our experience of why most companies and business leaders get involved. These days virtually every company does something in this area, from the most humble volunteer reading scheme to these multi-million pound sponsorships.
And going back to the earliest days, more than two decades ago, the motivation has long been around the umbilical cord that links good schools with productive workers and profitable companies. All of which makes BITC’s refreshed mission and new strategic priorities for its educational work both timely and pertinent.
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