Middleton-based training company take local pupils to NEC

Students quiz the Shadow Minister for Transport, Owen Paterson MP

Local school pupils were invited along to Britain’s largest road transport event as guests of Middleton-based Manchester Training Ltd as part of an initiative to encourage more school-leavers to consider a career in one of the North West’s most important industries and met with Shadow Minister for Transport, Owen Paterson MP, during a field-trip with a difference this week. The group visited the Commercial Vehicle Show at the National Exhibition Centre on Tuesday 25 April.
 
The students quizzed the Shadow Minister on the hot topic of the skills gap from which the industry currently suffers.

Fifteen year old Stephanie Norris grilled the MP on the problem of gender segregation within logistics, as the sector accounts for 6.5% of all employment in England, yet a mere 22% of these workers are female and less than 1% are LGV drivers.

Manchester Training is committed to addressing this and other key industry issues with a range of initiatives including a groundbreaking ‘grassroots’ logistics training programme for Year 10 pupils in seven North Manchester Schools, in partnership with Manchester College of Arts & Technology. In May, the pupils will have the option to choose to complete a Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (CILT) Level 2 vocational qualification in Logistics with Manchester Training and CILT, whilst still at school. This qualification will sit alongside their GCSE’s and stand them in good stead to pursue a successful career in the logistics industry.

Fifteen year old Richard Massie immediately proved to the MP that his time with Manchester Training has been a success when he asked Mr. Paterson what the Conservatives plan to do about the problem of the ageing workforce in the transport industry. The Shadow Minister was surprised to learn from Richard that there are more licensed LGV drivers in the UK aged between 66 and 70 than there are aged 26-30 – a worrying statistic for the industry but perhaps more worrying to discover that Mr. Paterson was not already aware of this! 

The Shadow Transport Minister was impressed at the work being done to address these issues within the sector, and was interested to learn of the activities of Manchester Training and the sector skills councils, Skills for Logistics and the Automotive Skills Council. At a Government level, he suggested that the most effective action he & his Westminster colleagues can take is to ensure that young people are well informed of the wide variety of logistics industry careers available to them. He pledged to ensure that work is done to inform young people that the sector suffers from a misguided perception that it is a poor industry in which to develop a successful career path. He also commented that on a recent visit to Scandinavia he had received some tuition in driving a heavy goods vehicle – from a young woman!

Mark Currie, Executive Director of Manchester Training says: “We are very proud of the pioneering work we are doing with local schools and are pleased that these pupils grasped this opportunity with both hands. We have worked with the youngsters to give them an understanding of the theory of a career in logistics, and I am delighted that we have been able to give them this chance to get up close and personal with the reality of the industry, some of it’s key figures, and the exciting developments in technology which make logistics such an attractive prospective career”.

Lucinda Ward, Marketing Director for Skills for Logistics, joined Mark in his enthusiasm and said: “We’re keen for these students to learn more about the opportunities in logistics so that we can dispel the myth that the industry only offers dead-end, uninteresting and low paid jobs. In fact, the logistics industry offers a vast range of exciting opportunities to work in one of the UK’s most technologically advanced sectors. We’re very much hoping that these students will want to be the next generation of an industry that is vitally important to the economy of the North West.”