Packaging firms back manufacturing diploma

Another DS Smith site, its sheet plant at Boon in Plymouth, is also considering signing up to the diploma.

At the heart of the Diploma in Manufacturing and Product Design is training in business and enterprise, product design and materials science, and production systems. It has been developed by the five sectors skills councils representing manufacturing, including Proskills, and in consultation with more than 5,000 employers, universities and colleges.

The diplomas are a key plank of the government’s reforms to 14-19 education in England, which aim to tackle employers’ concerns that young people are leaving school without the skills to prosper in employment.

They offer three levels: foundation and higher, both equivalent to GCSE level, and an advanced qualification for post-16 learners.

The diplomas are delivered by consortia of schools, colleges and employers, who give talks to students, provide site visits and help to design the diploma’s curriculum.

Two groups of students – one from Notre Dame girls’ school in Plymouth, and another from the city’s Tamarside school – have already visited DS Smith Launceston and will learn about materials controls and the testing of raw materials as part of their diploma programme.

Launceston managing director Jonathan Coote said supporting schools in the area was an important part of DS Smith’s corporate social responsibility programme.

The Plymouth pupils will also work with other major employers in the area, including Bombardier, which makes railway signalling equipment in Plymouth, food manufacturer Ginsters, and Kawasaki Precision Machinery.

“We are keen that manufacturing is seen as an exciting career,” said Coote. “This area has pupils with good brains and we would like to think we could assist in directing some of the very best into manufacturing as opposed to some of the more historically attractive sectors such as banking and tourism.”

An evaluation of the five existing diplomas, published last month by education inspectorate Ofsted, raised concerns over teaching of so-called “functional” skills, including maths, English and IT.

It also said pupils were choosing diplomas on “traditional gender lines”;
only 3% of those taking the engineering diploma were female, for example.

A spokesman for the manufacturing diploma said one of its purposes was to “educate more girls about manufacturing and challenge some stereotypes”.

The course had only been available from this month and the majority of students signing up so far had opted for the foundation and higher levels, he said.

Official government statistics on the number of young people taking the manufacturing diploma and the others on offer will be published in November.

The spokesman said more than 100 companies from a variety of manufacturing sectors had so far signed up to support the diploma. As well as DS Smith and Nampak, other big names include Cadbury, Boeing, Siemens, and printing group Polestar.

Along with the manufacturing qualification, the other diplomas launching this month cover business, administration and finance; environmental and land studies; hair and beauty studies; and hospitality.

Another five diplomas – on construction and the built environment; creative and media; engineering; information and technology; and society, health and development – started last year, and the government wants 17 to be up and running by 2011.

Are you involved in the manufacturing diploma? Is there a problem in getting school people interested in a career in manufacturing? What can the government do to ensure that skilled people enter the sector? Log in below and let us know your view.

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