Educational drive in Ashfield to create ‘the next scientists and engineers’

The authority will discuss the drive at its cabinet meeting next week, with one councillor saying the work is ‘distilling’ several council-led projects and efforts by higher education providers.

Part of the £62 million the district has already secured from the Government’s Towns Fund investment will be used to create an automated distribution and manufacturing centre.

This, the council says, will be a ‘national centre of excellence’ focused on ‘promoting and providing access’ to the latest technologies and best practices in automated distribution.

A further two new education centres will be created to provide opportunities for construction and civil engineering.

And the authority will be investing in a planetarium at Sherwood Observatory, off Coxmoor Road, to ‘bring science to life’ and engage people with science, technology, engineering and maths subjects.

This comes as both West Nottinghamshire College and Nottingham Trent University are investing in new facilities to boost education in the district.

The efforts aim to address Government figures which put Ashfield among some of the lowest areas nationally for a raft of educational attainment categories.

For example, in 2021 the district was ranked 327th out of 379 local authorities for primary education attainment and 332nd out of 379 authorities within the adult skills sector.

For education overall, Ashfield is ranked 310th nationally.

Aspirations

But Coun Matthew Relf, council portfolio holder for regeneration and growth, says the council, businesses and education providers are working together to bring these figures up.

He says the authority’s 2021 ranking for its overall indices has improved on 2020 and leaders ‘want to be turning around the aspirations for the area’.

The education drive, he adds, will pull together all the projects being launched district-wide to ‘deliver the skills’ for the area.

He said: “Let’s face it, on the indices of deprivation we are not in a great position.

“Compared with last year we are improving, but we certainly don’t want to be in the bottom half of the table – we want to be turning around the aspirations for the area.

“It’s about making sure the right conversations are going on between businesses and the education sector, so they are delivering the skills for our industry.

“West Notts and NTU are certainly flexing to what they can deliver and a lot of that links to what we’re doing with the ADMC in the Towns Fund.

“And we want to focus on lower-aged groups and helping schoolchildren to go on trips that really inspire them to be the next scientists and engineers.

“We want to show them these aspirations and these jobs are in the local area, so they can recognise the fantastic businesses we have here and encourage more businesses to invest in our workforce.”

It comes after the Government revealed Nottinghamshire is among 55 areas set to receive education investment as part of its ‘Levelling Up’ drive.

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