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East Kent College in Folkestone has secured over £1.3 million from the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) to extend its training facilities and help boost construction skills in the county. The funding will be used to extend the existing construction training facilities at the campus, giving it an extra 1,089m² of training space. This will be used for teaching bricklaying, plastering and more to students when it is fully operational from January next year.
Graham Razey, Principal of East Kent College, commented that "the building would help to combat skills shortages in the construction industry, providing valuable training facilities for students." He added that “there is a real skills shortage in the construction sector locally..."
"The Construction Skills Network South East estimates that 970 more bricklayers alone will be required across the region by 2019. This new development will help ensure that we can meet that need while also providing opportunities for young people to secure sustainable careers locally.”
Geoff Miles, Kent Chair of SELEP and Chair of the Kent & Medway Economic Partnership claims that: “Improving the skills available to the construction sector will have an important impact on the economy of Folkestone and further afield in Kent."
At Logic PM, we welcome the news that more is being done to encourage young people to learn construction skills and enter the industry. There is indeed a skills shortage which needs to be resolved and more funding for education and training projects like this is needed. As an active member of the Kent apprenticeships scheme, we also advocate this route into the industry and would encourage school leavers to consider vocational training and apprenticeships.