Bill Rammell, the government’s minister for lifelong learning, further and higher education visited Harper Adams University College recently, to discuss its programme for projects on employer engagement and work-based learning.
The visit inevitably focused on the partnership between Harper Adams and Management Development Services (MDS). The two organisations are working together to develop a groundbreaking post-graduate certificate in food and fresh produce management, which is the first of its kind to be introduced, in any UK sector.
MDS’s Dani Shaw told FPJ that the minister was particularly impressed with the MDS programme and felt that the partnership delivers exactly what the government has in mind for academia and industry coming together to provide such programmes. “The minister immediately hooked onto what MDS is doing and was very enthusiastic about our methods and messages,” she said. “He went on to suggest that an early meeting should be held between MDS and his senior officials to further understand the operation of MDS.”
A government report (Leitch, 2006) put increasing emphasis on flexible modes of delivery, including work-based learning as important mechanisms for achieving the realisation of the UK’s higher skills agenda, and for delivering better productivity levels and economic growth. In addition to this the latest government report on science and innovation (the Sainsbury report published on October 5) emphasises the importance of the ‘race to the top’ for British companies, rather than the spiral of decline which will result from cost-cutting as the prime approach to competition.
Upon completion of the new qualification the MDS trainees will receive postgraduate academic recognition from Harper Adams University College. The programme will give MDS trainees a much enhanced career boosting opportunity. The first trainees will graduate in 2009.
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