Industry, parents and potential students will be consulted this month over plans for one of four University Technical Colleges set to specialise in construction, its lead sponsor said this week.
Nigel Donohue, head of business development services at CITB-Construction Skills, said the plan was to create a “construction and enterprise learning zone for the West Midlands that would inspire young people to get involved in the industry”. Other sponsors are the University of Wolverhampton and Walsall College, with Wilmott Dixon, Balfour Beattie, Morgan Sindall and Lovell, Hewden Stewart and Barhale Construction as industry partners.
“The West Midlands UTC will transform opportunities for 14-19-year-olds in the region to undertake full-time, practical, vocational and technical studies in a wide range of specialist skills that will help prepare them for a career in the construction industry,” added Donohue.
Greenwich UTC
West Midlands UTC is one of 33 that have been approved by the Department of Education, of which 15 are expected to open in 2013.
UTCs aim to provide technical skills training, alongside mainstream qualifications, to 20,000 young people aged between 14 and 19.
The intake age has been set at 14 as 11 is considered too early to choose a subject path to follow, while 16 is too late.
The other UTCs with a construction focus are: Buckinghamshire (IT and Specialist Construction); Burnley (Construction and Engineering, including the nuclear industry); Greenwich (Construction and Engineering). In addition, Daventry will have a specialism in sustainable technologies.
… but unlikely to adopt elements of Construction diploma curriculum
Despite hopes that the UTCs would partially adopt the Diploma in Construction and the Built Environment, in effect already dropped by mainstream schools, the latest indications are that the colleges will instead duplicate the BTEC qualifications available in FE colleges.
CITB-ConstructionSkills and the Baker Dearing Educational Trust had hoped that the four construction-focused UTCs could offer the Principal Learning component of the diploma, its academic core.
But according to Nick Gooderson, head of education and training at CITB-ConstructionSkills, the UTCs have shied away as Principal Learning is seen as equivalent to one GCSE in league tables, even though the volume of work is considered equal to four GCSEs.
Gooderson said it might be possible to split Principal Learning into four separate qualifications, which would allow UTCs to differentiate their offer from FE colleges. However, time is short as the UTCs opening in September 2013 are now issuing prospectuses.
UTCs offer a longer day, from 8:30am to 5:30pm, and a school year of 40 weeks. This adds an extra year for every two years a student is in the UTC.
