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UCL Institute of Education – Joint Conference

11-02-2025
On the 7th February 2018, Jenny Holloway, CEO of Fashion Enter & FashionCapital, headed up to Leeds as a guest speaker at the UCL Institute of Education – Joint Conference. She was one of twelve speakers and her specific topic focused on ‘learning in the factory’ while the overall discussion centred on ‘building a robust technical education system through regional and national employer-provider partnerships.’
The conference discussed:
- Partnerships: their role in functional and dysfunctional regional systems
- Sharing knowledge to meet local skills requirements for regional, national and international employers and markets
- Building a high skills system
- A framework for developing occupational expertise
- Employers and employees teaching their technical and vocational work in the Further Education and Training sector
- Supporting progress towards outstanding, teaching, learning and assessment
The conference brought together employers, senior leaders from education, academics and policy makers to consider how to close the skills gap, through:
– improving technical and vocational education and;
– building better partnership working between employers and educators.
The conference drew on recent initiatives from the Education and Training Foundation, and on research by the UCL Institute of Education about development of regional skills systems.
The discussion explored possibilities for the establishment of more regionally-located and systematic approaches to provider-based technical and professional education, to strengthen provision at levels 4 and 5. The conference also discussed the key role employer-provider partnerships can play in promoting progression to and through higher level learning into skilled work and so contribute to wider economic growth and sustainability.
(Image: Jenny Holloway with fellow speaker Neil Fletcher, Honorary Research Associate UCL)