Examination of Witnesses (Questions 580-593)
MS HAZEL MATHIESON, MS KATIE HUTTON MR KEVIN SWEENEY
14 MAY 2008
Q580 Mr Devine: It was launched on Monday?
Ms Hutton: Launched on Monday and it is being tested. We have had very good initial feedback.
Q581 Mr MacNeil: Mr Sweeney, as a former teacher I was quite impressed, obviously, about what you are trying to do and the way you are looking at where your pupils are. You are building for the future, from what you are telling us. Apart from defence, say I was looking at an average 100 pupils, where would they go? What normally happens to 100 pupils who are leaving Govan, and just how important is defence in that mix?
Mr Sweeney: In terms of leaver destinations? Where do they go when they leave school?
Q582 Mr MacNeil: Yes. We are focusing, at the moment, on those who go to defence. Maybe some go elsewhere as well.
Mr Sweeney: Most of our kids are ordinary kids who will leave to go to ordinary jobs. They will work in shops, they will work in the retail sector or they will work in offices. We have a successful business studies department in the school, so a lot of our kids do administration and do business management and office practice—subjects like that. So they will go off into administration-type jobs. A lot of our wee girls will often be successful hairdressers and a lot of our wee boys aspire to be diesel mechanics. I think, broadly speaking, if you think of our leaver destinations, there is a sort of little pyramid, where, out of your 100, most of them, the ordinary kids, will go to ordinary jobs. As the pyramid gets narrower you will have the ones who go to more skilled jobs, like diesel mechanics, for example, and at the very top of the pyramid you will have the four boys who are going to leave us this month and go to be modern apprentices in BAE. Then there is a tiny, tiny, little point at the top of the pyramid, which this year is two pupils, who will go to university. So out of your 100, that is the sort of breakdown of our leaver destinations. Unfortunately, there is still a chunk of them who go into unemployment.
Q583 Mr MacNeil: Are you finding a change coming on over the years where this pyramid may be getting broader at the top and narrower at the bottom?
Mr Sweeney: That is what we are trying to achieve. I suppose we are concentrating on the middle bit: let us raise aspirations; let us raise expectations and let us raise the prospects of the young people. I suppose the best example of that is our approach to the media industry in Govan now, where you have the BBC headquarters, STV and Film City all there. When it was announced that these organisations were coming to Govan my headteacher, Iain White, and I sat down and started to plot stratagems. We realised that young people would leave our school and get jobs in these places, as cleaners, but that is not what we wanted; we want our young people to get jobs in these places at technician or management level. Therefore, we have put media studies on the curriculum. We are breeding cameramen, we are breeding sound guys and we have got other technical-related courses on the curriculum that are beginning to produce young people who will get media level and technical level employment in these industries. That is our strategy with all of the outside partners that we deal with, be it the BBC or be it BAE.
Q584 Mr MacNeil: So would you say you are being pro-active in looking for the opportunities that any business on your doorstep is providing in the future for your pupils?
Mr Sweeney: Yes, we are very pro-active in that regard.
Q585 Mr MacNeil: The schools round about: are they similar or—
Mr Sweeney: I obviously cannot speak for any school apart from Govan High School, but I would say there is a general tendency that schools in our kind of area, in the deprived areas, are forced by our context to be innovative like that and to go out seeking opportunities, whereas perhaps some schools in more fortunate circumstances actually do not have to be that innovative and do not have to go out seeking partners in the same way that we do.
Q586 Chairman: Representatives of the defence industry told our Committee that they work with the Scottish schools and universities. Can you give us some examples where defence companies have undertaken any work at schools or universities?
Mr Sweeney: We were saying earlier about the way their organisations and Make it in Scotland interacted in schools. Through BAE Systems we have a fantastic tour that goes round the schools, called CragRats, which is based on a little piece of theatre, and after that somebody talks to the kids about engineering. It is very good; it works very well. I am not sure if it was part of Make it in Scotland or whether it will continue to be funded and continue to go out, but certainly the impact it had on our young people was noticeable. I am sure that has fed into the numbers I am getting now that are choosing engineering as a subject. That is from a school perspective.
Ms Mathieson: I think I can say in Fife we have just had a project completed whereby four high school teachers from four schools that are nearby Rosyth have spent some time at Babcock in Rosyth, really trying to better understand what engineering is about so they can take that back to their schools. They are hoping to continue that relationship with Babcock and the schools. That is one element of how they are trying to build up the relationship between schools and industry. What we have also just undertaken—and I suppose it links in to what Katie said previously—is an engineering tour in Fife. All the intermediary staff that work with youngsters, and unemployed adults, so school teachers, careers advisers, JobCentre Plus staff—influencers who work with these individuals—were taken on a full day visit to Babcock in Rosyth and we had a visit to a renewable energy company in Methil and they visited another high-tech engineering company in West Fife. If these people who are influencing youngsters and adults do not understand themselves what a modern engineering facility looks like, it is quite difficult for them to try and relay that experience to children. It is something that has been tried and tested on the financial services sector and we have now done it in the engineering sector and it was very well received, and we hope to do it again soon.
Q587 Mr Devine: Can you send us a note on the project in the financial sector and the model you have just talked about?
Ms Mathieson: Yes, sure.
Q588 Mr Devine: In particular, the one on the financial sector. Where was that piloted and where is that applying?
Ms Mathieson: It was piloted in Edinburgh but we have now done it in Fife as well because in Fife, although we do not have a lot of the front office, high-tech jobs, we do a lot of the back-office work; we have the contact centres for the financial services industry as well. So I will send that information.
Q589 Mr Devine: Did you use the same model in Fife that had been developed?
Ms Mathieson: Yes.
Mr Devine: That would be very helpful, Chairman.
Q590 Chairman: Has the Scottish Marine Technologies Training Project begun any work to identify the re-skilling and retraining that will be required at the end of the future carrier project, and identify other Scottish industries which may be able to absorb some of the workers?
Ms Mathieson: I think they recognise that that is an issue: to ramp up significant numbers when the aircraft carrier projects are complete. If the orders are not there for other similar work, what do we then do with these individuals? So that has been built into the back end. So from about 2012 onwards we need to look at putting some public financial expenditure into looking at re-skilling. I suppose in the area that I am more familiar with, in Fife, we have some significant projects coming up. We have a big renewable energy park and we have got, hopefully, a new Forth Crossing at some stage as well, although some of the timescales do not all tie in. I think we recognise that is something we must do because we cannot leave significant numbers of people in an industry where there may not be work. A lot of the skills are transferable skills, particularly to the renewable energy sector. So that work will kick in once the work from the aircraft carrier starts to recede.
Q591 Mr Walker: I think that is the key here, is it not? You are providing people with high value, transferable skills, and some will move to find new jobs while others will find jobs within the area. These people are not going to be bereft. You are producing some really seriously talented people.
Ms Mathieson: Yes.
Q592 Mr Devine: Could you give us The Path is Green, or whatever it was called, and can you give us a copy of the research comparing that project with what was going on before?
Ms Hutton: I think it was an evaluation. This has to be evaluated because it is just about green jobs. If they start off with green jobs successfully then the model can be transferred to any industry.
Q593 Chairman: Could I thank the witnesses for their attendance today. Before I declare the meeting closed, would you like to say anything in conclusion, perhaps, on any other area which we have not covered in our questioning?
Mr Sweeney: I would like to say, on behalf of my headteacher, who unfortunately cannot be here today because he is representing the school at an international event in another English City, thank you to the Committee for the opportunity for our wee school to come and say our piece in Westminster.
Mr Walker: Good for you.
Chairman: Thank you. Your evidence will be very helpful for us when we compile our report. Certainly we will send you a copy of our report. Thanks once again.
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