LSDA NI Director Trevor Carson with Shadow Secretary of State for Northern, Owen Paterson MP
Shadow Secretary of State, Owen Paterson MP, was in Belfast today to meet with Trevor Carson, Director of the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA NI). The discussion focused on the need to redress the balance between the public and private sector in Northern Ireland and how some of LSDA’s flagship programmes are seeking to address this through linking further education and industry.
The core remit of LSDA NI, which is part of the Learning and Skills Network(LSN), is supporting Quality Improvement and Professional Development in the Further Education sector.
Following the meeting Owen Paterson MP said:
“I was delighted to meet with Trevor Carson today in Belfast. It is vital that Northern Ireland moves away from its dependency on the public sector. We need to make Northern Ireland more entrepreneurial and do everything possible to attract more private sector investment. An essential part of this jigsaw is the role that Learning and Skills can play, through for example upskilling the workforce.
“LSDA NI is making significant progress in this area through its Lecturers into Industry scheme, which establishes links between the colleges and industry. LSDA and its parent organisation LSN are also striving to improve the skills of the workforce through ‘Inventing the Future,’ a bespoke leadership and management programme for the FE sector. We commend the work that they are doing and look forward to working with both LSDA and LSN in the future.”
Trevor Carson, Director of LSDA NI said:
“I welcome the opportunity to meet with the Shadow Secretary of State, Owen Paterson to discuss the Improvement Agenda. The Learning and Skills Network, which we are part of, has already conducted a series of meetings with John Hayes MP, Shadow Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education on improving knowledge and skills in England. We are delighted now to be able to mirror that progress in Northern Ireland by meeting Mr Paterson.
“Today I have highlighted the work that we do in supporting the Essential Skills strategy, the role that we play at the interface between colleges and schools and how we manage the successful ‘Lecturers into Industry’ initiative and ‘Inventing the Future’ programme. We are aware that there is much to achieve in making the economy of Northern Ireland self-sufficient but we hope that through improving access to learning and skills we can contribute to making Northern Ireland a more entrepreneurial place.”
