Welcome to my Blog

Hi and welcome to this Blog, which must get some award for the most precise sounding title of any blog yet seen ..

Although is will be about HE in Somerset, it will have a wide ranging and varied approach. It is for everyone in our area, you might be at school, college or university, working in a business or perhaps a parent/carer, employer or educationalist – I hope you’ll find something interesting on here.

When this was planned some people have asked, why do we need a blog about HE in Somerset…what is the deal about HE anyway? So I’ll begin with a bit of background. For several years now the need to have higher level skills/degrees to compete in the world economy has been identified by various government reports and private bodies, such as the CBI. Those jobs that will be around in 2020 will be requiring higher skills, and those jobs with lower skill demands will be fewer in number. Skills that were once seen as technical and only used by a few, such as those within Information Communications Technology (ICT) are now mainstream. By 2020 more that 40% of jobs could be filled by graduates, currently this stands at about 30%.

In Somerset we are a net exporter of people with higher level skills, we do not have an actual University in Somerset, (yet!), and so a lot of young people go out of county for their education, and many do not return. However although degrees are available in Somerset from the local FE colleges and, of course, the Open University, will this be enough for the future we face? Although there are 13 Universities in the South West region, increasingly more local options might be appealing. The Open University now takes increasing numbers of 18 year olds, but how many young people consider that as an option? Should they?

You can also gain a degree whilst working, combining the experience, (and money!), of a job whilst getting a qualifications. Local companies are offering this, such as Flybe at Exeter, Tesco and McDonalds Restaurants. I’ve also attended a ceremony at Yeovilton of graduates of a Royal Navy initiative which provided a foundation degree as part of their study package see the BBC news coverage here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/7122014.stm

If you think this sounds a bit like an apprenticeship, yet it’s on an HE in Somerset blog, then you are quite right. Words like Higher Level Skills, Foundation degrees, and NVQ 4 and 5 are all part of the drive to upskill our workforce and make Somerset a positive economic centre in our region. As I go through I’ll be looking in such areas in more depth, but if you have any questions about Higher Education in Somerset why not email me? If it’s an interesting question it might even be answered (anonymously if you wish) on this blog in a section I’ll entitle “Question of the Week”!