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City’s University showcases the advantages of Skillset’s national academy
[1st October 2008] Mr John Hayes, the Conservatives’ shadow minister for innovation, universities and skills, took advantage of Birmingham being the venue for his party’s conference to visit Birmingham City University’s recently established Skillset Academy.
Mr Hayes was accompanied on his visit by Skillset’s Chief Executive Officer, Dinah Caine and her deputy, Kate O’Connor. Skillset’s Media and Screen Academies network seeks to promote collaborative working between education and industry to produce innovators of the future, so that the UK's creative industries can be at the international forefront of productivity and business innovation.
Colleges and universities across the UK have been carefully selected as centres of excellence in the television and interactive media fields. They are institutions which the UK film industry first identified as offering the highest quality of skills training to ensure the UK has the most talented workforce in the world for film, television and interactive media.
Dinah Caine told Mr Hayes that the creative economy will have almost certainly overtaken financial services in recent months as the UK’s fastest growing sector, contributing approaching 8% to gross domestic product. Referring to the Birmingham City University’s Skillset Academy she said: “We selected 55 higher and further education institutions from whom we were happy to receive bids for academy status.
This resulted in our assessment teams visiting 33 of them, from which 17 high quality bodies were chosen. Birmingham City University led the way in its approach to professional development through short courses, bespoke training, investment and relevant research.”
Skillset is finding the UK’s creative industries welcome such academies chosen for their strategic approach to progressive training and close relationship with business. Birmingham City University had been seen to integrate its educational activities with industry involvement particularly well, not only at regional, but also at national and international levels. Highly flexible educational programmes, monthly creative networks for regional businesses and events encompassing both students and working professionals, as well as a digital film festival and other special events have all contributed to a uniquely broad activity portfolio.
Associate Dean for Birmingham City University’s faculty for technology, innovation and development, Professor Peter Rayson, commented: “Across the University we now run hundreds of certified professional development courses which account for professionals needs for continuous development throughout their working careers. The speed of technological development is such that our programmes are never static, but flexible and modular, advancing from year to year in support of the needs of the growing creative economy.”
Mr Hayes, and subsequently his colleague Mr Jeremy Hunt, shadow secretary for Culture, Media and Sport, were given the opportunity of seeing how wide-ranging and relevant the University’s digital media-based technology courses had become. They relate not only to information and entertainment, but also to a serious range of engineering fields. Demonstrations of modern media being used in medical diagnosis, sophisticated security scanning and behavioural analysis were among the many applications identified.
Skillset’s Dinah Caine was keen to reassure both the conservative spokesmen that modern media had moved a long way from the traditionally narrow concept of over subscribed media studies simply relating to journalistic matters. She said: “We have thousands of 14-19 year-olds now registered for the new media studies diploma courses, designed to complement their other studies. They should be a catalyst between schools, colleges, universities and employers so that students will be media-experienced in a way that is of real value in and to the working world.”
Creative businesses interested in knowing more about the help they might receive from the Birmingham City University’s Skillset Academy should contact Bez Shirvani on 0121 331 5400 or e-mail enquiries@tic.ac.uk
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