19th February 2018
Barking & Dagenham College has been awarded a share of £25.7 million funding by the Mayor, Sadiq Khan to boost skills and training for Londoners across the capital.
The Mayor has recently announced that Barking & Dagenham College has received £5 million to complete its Centre for Advanced Technologies.
In 2012, Barking & Dagenham College governors agreed the College’s 15 year property strategy and massive changes have since occurred, with almost the entire strategy being completed in just 5 years. The ambitious project has seen the frontage of the building transformed into an attractive public space for the benefit of local people including a library, a restaurant, café and retail outlets, run by students. The remaining part of the implementation is the refurbishment of the College’s ageing ‘D’ block to transform the space in to a ‘Centre for Advanced Technologies’ (CAT).
The Centre for Advanced Technologies project will involve refurbishing and redesigning existing facilities to create an advanced skills training centre, delivering a contemporary, leading-edge STEAM curriculum to meet the skill needs of London and the local area.
The CAT will train people in wide range of modern curriculum areas resulting in higher level technician grade qualifications in emerging occupational areas: Advanced Infrastructure technologies; Engineering and Robotics: Creative and Digital; Information and Communication Technology; Data and big data; TV and Film production.
Principal and CEO Yvonne Kelly commented:
The new Centre will provide flexible, energised technical learning spaces, integrating with and complementing the College’s existing innovative learning environments which have proven to increase student numbers in STEM training and develop advanced skills.
Industry is changing and needs a workforce trained in new advanced, technological and innovative methods to meet industry’s future needs. Supported by employers, we are working with key industries to ensure the skills replicate what they are looking for from their future workforce.
The CAT is a pan-industry collaborative project with partners from a range of technology based companies. The CAT will be designed with, and responsive to, key employers, student client groups and local stakeholders to successfully meet the skills and economic challenges and opportunities of the future. Careful attention has been paid to national, regional and local drivers and economies.
Robert Yang, Head of Huawei Enterprise UK said:
This is great news. Huawei is very pleased to support Barking & Dagenham College in the development of its new facility through the Huawei Academy programme. We announced the Huawei Academy partnership last year and are very happy to be supporting Barking & Dagenham College in the development of its Centre for Advanced Technologies. We look forward to continuing our work together to help the local community and students studying STEM subjects.
