Permanent Secretary enjoys campus tour
SUSAN Acland-Hood, the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education, showed off her gaming skills during a visit to York College & University Centre.
As part of a tour of the campus, Ms Acland-Hood dropped in on a Computer Games Development tutorial and enjoyed playing a game created by student Finn Ellenor.
Organised by the Yorkshire and Humber Institute of Technology, the tour saw Ms Acland-Hood learn more about the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) courses that the Government-funded body are helping us deliver.
The leading civil servant was also shown some of the impressive state-of-the-art equipment, supplied by the Institute, that our students are benefitting from.
As well as popping into the Computer Games Development room, Ms Acland-Hood paid a visit to the Advanced Manufacturing Suite and met Level 3 Product Design and Engineering students and teaching staff.
At the end of the tour, she praised our “highly-skilled” teachers for equipping students with the knowledge and experience needed to take advantage of “all sorts of opportunities in the future” and, commenting on the importance of York College & University Centre’s partnership with the Yorkshire and Humber Institute of Technology, Ms Acland-Hood said: “I like to make sure I get out and about and do a visit every week, to different schools, colleges and universities across the whole education system in different parts of the country, so it was great to come to Yorkshire and Humber and see the Institute of Technology. I really enjoyed seeing how the College is putting together technology education with highly-skilled teachers giving students experiences that you can see will provide them with all sorts of opportunities in the future.
“The Institute of Technology is really important and a really good model that goes all the way through Level 2, 3, 4 and 5 and, then, into Higher Education study. I think trying to create more places in the education system where we aren’t seeing Higher Education and Further Education as separate entities or in competition, but as partners, can help give really, great pathways for young people and can prepare them for the skills we know employers need now and in the future.
“We are starting to see a real impact in terms of the reputation the Institute of Technology has with students and employers, because it is providing those skills that are needed to a really, high standard. There are a huge set of elements in the IoT model which we want more of across the education system in the IoT form, but we also want to include features of it in the rest of the system, because I think we can learn from the IoTs to create a better skills system overall.”
