CSD Summer 2010
Nick Grist, City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development

Dear Colleague,

Welcome to the summer 2010 edition of the City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development (CSD) newsletter.

We continue to work with stakeholders to disseminate the findings from our Training for rural development research project. I am pleased to announce that the project report has received a citation in the International Fund for Rural Development (IFAD) Rural Poverty Report 2010

We are keen to hear your thoughts on how we can meet your needs and improve the way we communicate to you. We have created a newsletter survey and will be donating £5 to the Pakistan floods appeal for every completed questionnaire we receive.

I am grateful to Matilda Gosling (The Research Base), Rebecca Day (The Africa Unit), and
Ruth Lomax (Hackney Community College) for their excellent contributions to this edition.

I hope you find the articles as interesting as we have. If you have any comments or would like to contribute an article, please contact the editor.

Nick Grist
Senior Programme Manager
City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development

In this issue...



We must train young people how to think…it’s critical

Taiye Aro, Marketing Manager for CSD, shares his opinion on the importance of ‘critical thinking’ and how he thinks it can be utilised to increase the engagement of young people in education.

Tasks, Not Time: Making better use of working mothers' skills

Employers are not making full use of the skills of working mothers, who often find themselves in low-paid, low-skilled work in order to secure sufficient flexibility. Matilda Gosling, Managing Director of the Research Base, looks at why this is important and how it can be addressed.

Hackney-Lagos Partnership for Modernising Vocational and Employability Education

Ruth Lomax, Assistant Director, Marketing and Communications, reports on the Hackney Community College (East London, UK) commitment to support the Lagos State Government (Nigeria) in its reform of college education. A comprehensive professional development programme for staff from colleges and the Lagos State Government has been delivered in Hackney and in Lagos, with immediate and longer-term benefits already apparent.

Good Practices in Educational Partnerships Guide: UK-Africa Higher & Further Education Partnerships

Rebecca Day, Partnerships Project Assistant for The Africa Unit, reports on the recent publication of a guide to good practice in educational partnerships. The guide aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion around partnerships in higher and further education, with a focus on partnerships between institutions in the UK and Africa.

Complete our survey and raise money for the Pakistan flood appeal

We at the City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development deeply value your feedback on all of our resources. We would be very grateful if you could take the time to complete our survey to help ensure that the content of our newsletter continues to meet your requirements. A thousand thanks in advance. We promise to donate £5.00 to the Pakistani flood appeal for every completed survey received.

Join the debate: we want to hear from you

Join our online discussion forum and discuss the pressing issues within vocational education and training.

our forum...

Briefing notes

CSD has produced a series of briefing notes on issues affecting the global vocational education and training sector. These notes aim to briefly summarise and compare existing research, policy and practice in different countries, and to use this to develop general principles as a starting point for debate among education stakeholders.

Below are our most recent briefing notes:

For more comprehensive information on specific issues please refer to the further reading sections of the notes, or contact CSD directly.