Education Business Partnership - how to make a difference
Morgan PR believes in giving back to the local community of West Berkshire; from our sponsorship of the West Berkshire Rapid Response Cars through to being School Governors at John O'Gaunt Community Technology College in Hungerford and our corportate sponsorship of the Corn Exchange in Newbury.
Our roles as school governors introduced us to the outstanding work of the Education Business Partnership West Berkshire, a charity which seeks to inspire the future workforce through so fantastic events to make the world of business relevant to young people - and to help businesses recognise how vital this young people are to our futures.
At the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce lunch at the Regency Park Hotel in Thatcham today the speaker was Amanda Richards (pictured above), Chief Executive Officer of the EBPWB. There were many of the same faces who had attended last month to hear us talk about Organic PR, social media and Twitter.
Amanda began by asking if when you left education did we feel that we had the skills to enter into work with confidence? Did we know what we wanted to do and did we have sufficient understanding of industries to help us make a good decision about what you wanted to do?
While it was clear from the knowing nods around the room that very few of us had felt ready for work, she was quick to say that today was even more challenging.
“My business is about inspiring our future workforce”, she said. “I run an organisation called an Education Business Partnership - I sit outside of the education sector – but work in partnership both with them and the business sector.
To give this talk some context got a few facts from Shift Happens UK – an amazing short sequence on YouTube – worth a look – pretty astounding sequence of positioning statements about the world we live in. For example, facts and predictions about the UK:
5% population in China’s population with the highest IQs is greater than the total population of UK
They have more gifted and talented students than we have students.
Today’s learners will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented... in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.
By the powers of modern technology we can bring you the Shift Happens UK video right here on the Morgan PR blog - and true to what Amanda said, it is powerful stuff:
Back in the room, Amanda had continued: “The challenge this country has is to prepare our young people to be sufficiently skilled to compete successfully in the world (not just Berkshire) Making sure young people have the core skills and insights that they need to be successful when they leave education and start work. Transferable skills and a curiosity and drive that will help them succeed.
“Young people that can compete with skilled people from around the world. In truth the future success of the UK and more locally, our community is dependant upon the success of young people today.”
She said that this amounts to a big change. A change that requires a willingness on both the part of the education and business sectors to be effective. To emphasis the point she quoted Barack Obama:
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for, we are the change that we seek”
So how can we – how can anyone – have the power to influence this change as an individuals or as company?
She continued: “It is the soft skills training and the insights into businesses that they are all looking for now. This means working with young people to share knowledge that is second nature to you and I.
Warning us that you did not need to be a big corporate to support this approach – something Morgan PR knows through our volunteering with the Education Business Partnership, she showed us a terrific DVD of the 'Take a Chance' programme that Vodafone has developed with the EBP.
She explained: “The power to influence skills development comes in all shapes and sizes but this dvd captures an example for you to see and hopefully make what I am talking about clearer to you.”
The DVD showed not only students flourishing, but the Vodafone staff who had taken part too. Amanda added: “Without sounding too evangelistic, it is important to understand why people do get involved with this and what is gained for you personally or for a business.
“It offers the opportunity to influence a successful future workforce, to make a difference in the community within which your existing employees live and let’s not forget that there can be great personal satisfaction in giving something back. It can also raise the profile of your company, which is good PR and it needn’t take much time.
So I have done this presentation today, not for me and not really for my organisation but for the young people West Berkshire and hopefully to influence some thinking about the future workforce of this country. The message is – you can make that difference. A little bit of your time can make a big change to your life, your business and their future."
There were plenty of questions and we had the chance to mention how much we have helped EBP too and we will be helping them more very soon. We also would recommend anyone else to help out too.