Memorandum 10
Submission from the Chartered Institution
of Water and Environmental Management
1. INTRODUCTION
AND EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
As a leading Professional Body the Chartered
Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) plays
an important role in peer reviewing by professional examination
many of those practicing in the environmental field. CIWEM endeavours
to create a sustainable, multi-skilled profession and supports
its many members through knowledge sharing and a commitment to
life long learning and continuing professional development. Members
of the Institution include engineers, scientists and other disciplines
engaged in advancing and delivering environmental management for
a clean, green and sustainable world.
1.1 The Institution agrees with many of
the recommendations of the Leitch Report and believes that, if
we are to advance our aims of engaging more people with the life
long learning agenda, and increasing the depth and range of their
skill set, then higher education provision needs to become much
more flexible and increasingly move away from conventional lecture/on-campus
delivery to more work-based delivery and negotiated learning programmes.
2. EMPLOYER —HIGHER
EDUCATION ENGAGEMENT
2.1 CIWEM takes the view that employer participation
in helping to design and to fund participants on credit bearing
work-based learning programmes is a win-win-win situation with
— the individual improving their credentials,
skills and desire and thirst for learning
— the employer gaining in the value
of, and output from, their work force
— the higher education institution
(HEI) in forging closer links with industry and the wider community—providing
expertise and facilities to more of an increasingly wide circle
of people for the greater good of society as a whole.
2.2 CIWEM feels that it is also critically
important for further education institutions (FEIs) and HEIs to
find more ways of working together to create imaginative and appealing
educational pathways that offer a seamless transition to those
learners who wish to escalate through to degree level and beyond
following a more vocational route.
2.3 Students need to find FEIs (and particularly)
HEIs to be learner-friendly and learner-focused organisations,
offering programmes and awards that people can relate to and that
provide access to tuition and resources in ways that enable those
— who are in-work and who are career
developers
— who are career changers
— who are career break returners and
— who are wishing to move into the
labour market to feel included and valued.
2.4 CIWEM also believes that adopting increasingly
flexible forms of delivery such as elearning and blended learning
will be a critical aspect of this process.
3. LEARNING AND
SKILLS COUNCILS
3.1 CIWEM believes that the Learning and
Skills Council and [particularly] the Sector Skills Councils must
continue to provide encouragement and support to HEIs in guiding
them to increase and develop provision that addresses the particular
areas of skill shortage that sector members identify.
4. RDAS
4.1 RDAs should also work closely with FEIs
and HEIs and, in conjunction, develop innovative ways that reach
out to, and familiarise, businesses in the region alerting them
to the potential and receptive ear that these institutions must
develop.
4.2 RDAs have a significant amount of intelligence
about the existing business profile in their region and the developments
and changes that are likely in the short-medium term. Further/higher
educational institutions must work in harmony with this agenda
to ensure that sufficient effort is put into addressing those
areas and subjects where there is clearly a skills deficit in
the regional populous with encouragement and appropriate funding
from the RDA to help to facilitate this transition.
5. CONCLUSION
5.1 It is clear that environmental issues—especially
climate change and water-related issues—together with sustainability
will feature increasingly more prominently in the people's minds
and in business's planning and strategy. CIWEM stresses the need
for appropriate weighting and importance to be given to these
issues by businesses, FEIs/HEIs, Sector Skills Councils and RDAs.
It is only with such coordination of effort that that we will
be able to speedily move to a position in which we can attain
a knowledgeable, agile and responsive population, able to tackle
the rapid changes that are needed in the environment/sustainability
agenda head on.
The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental
Management (CIWEM) is the leading professional and qualifying
body for those who are responsible for the stewardship of environmental
assets. The Institution provides independent comment, within a
multi-disciplinary framework, on the wide range of issues related
to water and environmental management and sustainable development.
April 2008
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