Importing and exporting knowledge and ideas to help bring economic benefits to the North East
A delegation from the North East, including the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (North East LEP), the CBI, Department for Work and Pensions, education providers and Transport North East, was invited by the British Embassy in Berlin to share learning on tackling climate change through sustainable transport, while also creating economic benefits for communities.
Michelle Rainbow, Skills Director at the North East LEP, gives an update on the resulting knowledge exchange with Bavaria.
We had a packed schedule for our visit to Bavaria and during the three days we visited further education colleges and met representatives from the German Department for Employment, and from the Bavarian equivalents of the North East LEP and the CBI. We learnt about the region’s transport strategy, the drive towards net zero, and the challenges this is bringing.
I set out to exchange learning on how we can develop a skilled workforce for our emerging green transport sector and how we can bring more and better jobs to our communities. Seeing first-hand how our colleagues in Germany are approaching these issues gives us really valuable insights to inform what we do here in the North East.
The same challenges in a different location
A big takeaway is that this visit showed that our colleagues in Bavaria are facing a lot of the same challenges we’re working on here in the North East.
We’re all looking at reskilling and upskilling our workforce to meet the needs of emerging sectors like electrification. We’re all working to reach net zero and adapting our transport – and therefore our skills pipelines – to do this. And, in both locations, we are tackling challenges around an ageing workforce and the need to change the way we work and make use of digitalisation.
Technical training and education
Key to meeting these challenges is appropriate skills provision for emerging green industries and our changing transport systems. And it was fascinating to see the differences between here and in Bavaria.
In Germany, skills provision is devolved to a regional level which gives a flexibility to respond to the needs of particular employers. However there are also challenges that come with this approach, such as consistency of curriculum and the impact when people move around to different regions.
Skills pipelines
Something else that is different in Bavaria and Ingolstadt is the approach employers take to investing in their future skills pipeline.
We saw how young people who are studying for a degree at university are often employed by large businesses at the same time, allowing them to gain experience in the workplace during university holidays.
This works alongside the apprenticeship model we use here in the UK, so businesses are investing in the skills pipeline both through apprenticeships and by investing in those completing a relevant degree course. It’s very different from the loans and self-finance model we see in the UK.
Emerging sectors
During the visit we shared information on the emerging sectors we have in the North East and how our region is leading the way in areas including battery manufacturing, electric vehicles and renewable energy.
We explained how the North East LEP supports schools to give children and young people – right from primary age upwards – age-appropriate careers guidance and insights into the jobs and sectors which will be growing in the future.
Similarly, we learnt about careers guidance in Bavaria and saw how it’s often tailored to opportunities in advanced manufacturing, which is a dominant industry there.
Building on what we learnt
Every single organisation which took part in the exchange has come away with ideas to explore and conversations to take further which will help inform our region’s skills provision, careers guidance and transport strategies.
In the same way that we export goods and services, we can export and import ideas. It’s vital that, as we’re looking at how we tackle challenges like digitalisation, the reduction of carbon, skills challenges, we remain outward-looking.