Dozens of companies have spelled out their hopes for a new “Birmingham Baccalaureate” – with cutting-edge digital skills and traditional engineering expertise high on the wish list.
A report into the demands of nearly 50 businesses in key sectors has produced nine recommendations to encourage city pupils to study for skills urgently needed if the city is to compete in future.
The results will feed in for plans for a Birmingham Baccalaureate – known as BBAC – a specially-designed qualification which will be offered to city youngsters from September.
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The Skills for Birmingham report, entitled Educating An Employable Generation For Birmingham, calls for a curriculum tailored to business needs, guides to help pupils into growth industries and an online portal to encourage partnerships between schools and the private sector.
Rachel Maclean, managing director of Skills for Birmingham, the delivery partner for the Baccalaureate, said the results would feed into the qualification and help to overturn a youth unemployment rate of more than 23 per cent – higher than every other core city.
“There is a skills gap and unless we get businesses involved, saying what they actually want, we are not going to be able to solve the problem,” she said.
“We picked the sectors based on the work across the LEP and economic development so it was in line with what the LEP was doing.
“The sectors are important to the local economy, but the skills are generally important across business.”
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Skills Birmingham held nine focus groups and four interviews with a range of companies, from those turning over less than £500,000 to more than £5 million. It focused on four economic zones identified as having growth potential for the city – digital, life sciences, engineering and food and hospitality.
Digital employers called for youngsters to be taught how to build websites while at school, while engineers want pupils to be given a better understanding of the properties in materials.
From the food and hospitality sector, bosses said that the city needs to teach its young people more Asian cooking skills, as currently employers in the Balti Triangle have to look overseas for specialist skills.
Life sciences employers said pupils should be given more time in a laboratory environment to prepare for the sector.
BBAC was designed in consultation with universities and business groups to ensure that school-leavers have the basic skills required by the Birmingham jobs and training market.
Ms Maclean said the program will allow companies to be directly involved in teaching, for example companies in the food sector could highlight the important skills from in chemistry lessons that would be helpful for future employment.
The research was funded by book publishing firm Packt Publishing and a pilot will be at between eight and 12 schools next year, before being rolled out across the city in September 2014.
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The analysis resulted in eight recommendations, including a new curriculum focused on businesses, with a particular focus on STEM subjects – which includes subjects in the fields of chemistry, computer and information technology and science, and an online resource bringing employers and schools together. It also calls for companies to work with youngsters to improve their job application skills and sector guides to be published, providing young people with information in the local job market.
Birmingham Edgbaston MP Gisela Stuart said the research will “directly influence” the development of the Baccalaureate.
She added: “If we get this right then the young people born in Birmingham will have the skills to get jobs in Birmingham.”