Basingstoke College of Technology

Currently BCOT is hidden away among high density housing.  Walk past its walls and you will remain unaware that the College offers high quality education and training in industry-standard facilities delivered by committed and professional staff.  This is doing a disservice to our young people, to our employers and to the Borough.

The education and training facilities created at a new BCOT will:

• support the successful delivery of the new 14-16 diplomas and the vocational/work-related learning agenda, as well as A levels and degrees
• encourage young people to continue studying right here in Basingstoke
• provide many employers with high quality training and development opportunities for their staff.
• give mature people, challenged by the prospect of having to change jobs possibly several times during their working life, a place to train or re-train. 

A new campus would enable us to be a valuable and influential partner in the achievement of current strategies to raise perceptions of Basingstoke, promoting the image that we all believe in – that Basingstoke is a great place to live and do business.

The impact of location and visibility must not be underestimated.  BCOT is fully committed to the Borough’s Community and Neighbourhood Renewal Strategies and the role education and training has to play in their successful delivery.  .

The value to individuals and the community:

• Innovative and excellent 14-19 education which raises local aspirations and, working with the schools, delivers the new diplomas in state of the art facilities
• The significant impact on achievement levels at all ages
• A reduction in the pre-16 numbers ‘not in education, employment or training’ (NEETs)
• Increased participation in education and training post-16 and those continuing at age 17
• An increase in numbers progressing to local higher education, facilitating that progression by expanding our offer in partnership with universities which focus particularly on provision that meets the needs of local employees and employers
• Improved skills across the age groups, keeping unemployment down and incomes up
• Engagement in lifelong learning for social and cultural development and ‘community self esteem’.

The value to business and the Borough:

• Retention of those employers currently located in the Borough
• The levels of inward investment
• Access to a better qualified workforce
• The offer of appropriate specialisms at all qualification levels
• Benefit to the local economy as education and training increases productivity and is positively related to personal income growth; local business benefits from trained local people who learn, live, work and spend in the Borough
• The development of an education ethos, as the numbers of local graduates increase and are retained in the Borough
• Reduced calls on our health and social services, and a reduction in crime rates – research shows that engaging in education has real potential to impact on all of these.

I live and work in Basingstoke; I am committed to the Borough and its successful future. In addition to being Principal of BCOT, I am actively involved in an array of community, employer and education-focused groups:

• Local Strategic Partnership (Board Member)
• Borough Business Partnership (Member)
• Basingstoke Learning Campus Steering Group and its HE/FE Sub-Group
• Basingstoke and North Hampshire NHS Foundation Trust Council (Stakeholder Governor for Education)
• Basingstoke Consortium of Schools and Colleges (Director)
• Basingstoke School Plus (Management Committee Member)
• North Hampshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Director and Chair of the Basingstoke Committee).

Other senior colleagues at BCOT are active outside of the College in various ways - working with the Council, as Governors of local Schools and Trustees of local and regional organisations.  Our work was recognised in May 2007 when BCOT was awarded one of four Mayor’s Awards – for its contribution to developing vocational training opportunities, services to the community and strong partnership with the Council.

I am totally confident in asserting that a new BCOT campus located at Kingsclere Road will be truly transformational for all of the communities that we serve  and play a significant part in increasing the Borough’s economic competitiveness.

 

 

 

 

 

Judith Armstrong
Principal, BCOT