HC Deb 22 January 1997 vol 288 cc631-2W
Mr. William O'Brien

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will make a statement on the initiatives her Department is taking to develop links between small businesses and colleges of higher education. [10606]

Mr. Forth

This Department has responsibility for supporting the development of closer links between education and business, including in particular those between higher education and employment.

The enterprise in higher education programme has initiated a range of links between employers and higher education institutions, and the Department also funds various development projects. I am placing a copy of the "Higher Education and Employment Projects Digest" in the Library.

Two new suites of projects have been started in 199697 specifically to develop links between higher education institutions and small and medium-sized enterprises. The "using graduate skills" projects will develop strategies and tools to increase graduate recruitment by SMEs, and assist employers in making better use of the graduates they recruit; and The higher education business partnerships projects have similar aims, but the focus is more sharply on forming permanent employer-led partnerships between higher education and the SME sector. The teaching company scheme enables firms to take advantage of the wealth of scientific, engineering, technological and business knowledge available in our universities with graduates working in a company for two years on projects central to the company's needs; The postgraduate training partnerships initiative, which is jointly supported by DTI, involves the annual recruitment into each partnership of up to 10 postgraduate students to undertake industrially relevant research; The Shell technology enterprise programme is a Shell UK national placement scheme, part-funded by the DTI, which provides undergraduates with relevant industrial experience; and The focus technology programme, run in association with business links, aims to help research and technology organisations and higher education institutions to improve the contact they have with small firms and the technological services they provide to them.