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Centre to be focus for work-based learning
30.04.09
A specialist learning centre aimed at increasing workforce skills has been transformed into a focus for work-based learning across Cornwall. To celebrate this achievement there will be both an official opening and a launch event in May.
The Learning Centre, at Teddingtons, St Austell, has undergone a £20,000 refurbishment and been fitted out with new equipment. The bulk of the money for this has come from the TUC as a commitment to promote adult learning. Now UnionLearn, part of the TUC, is launching the building as a UnionLearn U-Net Centre in partnership with Link into Learning.
This will operate alongside the various ESF (European Social Fund) Convergence projects and support learning from a specialist base. ESF Convergence investment is also being used to pay for a member of staff to coordinate the centre and for some marketing.
Other activities that will go on from the building include the recruiting of Learning Reps, holding special events to promote workforce skills, undertaking workplace learning surveys and running learning forums.
The official opening is scheduled for May 1st and a separate launch event will take place on May 5th, attended by Matthew Taylor MP. Mr Taylor performed the previous opening of the centre unveiling a plaque that is still on the wall inside.
Geoff Hale, TUC Regional Development Worker, said: "We hope this building will provide a focus for Trade Union led learning activity across Cornwall. We have about 14 Trades Unions working together. We asked them all what they wanted to be done supported by Convergence investment and what they said shaped this project.
"This is a huge achievement for Cornwall and they are all coming at it from the unique, workforce perspective - that is they have all asked the employees what they want whereas it is usually the employers who are asked.”
Carleen Kelemen, Director of the Convergence Partnership Office for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, said: "If we want to strengthen our economy we need workers with more and better skills. Offering training outside of a college environment is an additional way of ensuring more people have access to learning.”
Mark Williams, Skills Development Director - ESF, Learning and Skills Council, said: "The LSC is delighted to support this development as it leads the way in joint workbased learning activity between employers, employees and the TUC in Cornwall. We have been working on this project together for a number of years and it is fantastic for the area to see it come to fruition. The role of Union Learn in Cornwall is recognised as fundamental to the LSC's ESF plan with this project forming part of a planned Convergence investment in excess of £2m to support the TUC, our key social partner, in the support they provide through Union Learn to the workforce in Cornwall, especially at this time of economic uncertainty.”
Mr Hale added that the building being based next to Teddingtons meant it would be potentially more user friendly for employers not used to college environments.
The ESF Convergence investment is being delivered via the Learning and Skills Council as part of the Workforce Led Project. Targets include employees getting 410 Skills for Life qualifications and 1,000 NVQs at level 2 and 3. The project would also mean creating more Union Learning Representatives - volunteers in the workforce who encourage others to return to learning.
The ESF Convergence Programme is investing in the TUC's Union Learn via the co-financing of the Learning and Skills Council.
For further information:
Clare Morgan
Media Relations Manager for the Convergence Partnership Office
01872 223439 / 07973 813647
cmorgan@cornwall.gov.uk
Geoff Hale
Regional Development Worker Unionlearn, TUC
01726 73380
Editors' notes:
- Convergence helpline telephone: 0800 028 0120.
- In Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly the Convergence Programmes are made up of European Regional Development Fund (£347 million) and European Social Fund (£153 million). Convergence Programmes will run until 2013 and follow the successful Objective One Programme and prior to that Objective 5b.
