Truro and Penwith College’s rapidly expanding Apprenticeship provision has just had another major boost with the publication of national data for all Apprenticeship providers.
These official government figures showed exceptional outcomes for Apprentices, with the College not only well above the average Apprenticeship achievement rates of all providers across the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Enterprise area, but also fully 9% above the national rate of all providers.
Apprenticeships are a key part of Cornwall’s Economic Strategy to provide a skilled workforce and sustainable high quality employment and careers. When Ofsted recently graded the College Outstanding they identified the way the College’s highly effective and valued partnerships made “a considerable positive contribution to employers’ businesses”.
The College is now planning for further expansion by expanding its provision of degree level Apprenticeships and hopes to announce these in the summer. The latest addition to the College’s range degree level Apprenticeship programmes was last year’s Software Developer Apprenticeship. Designed in partnership with a number of employers in Cornwall’s tech sector including Hertzian (Truro) and Bluefruit Software (Redruth), this Apprenticeship has offered a progression route to Computing and IT students at the College and new applicants.
Christopher Weavill, Chief Operating Officer at Hertzian, a Truro-based software company, said: “A great way to expand Hertzians’ growing business is to hire Apprentices. The new Level 4 Software Development programme at Truro and Penwith College is the perfect course to provide the primary skills we need for our developing technology. Hertzian specialises in machine learning analytics of free text data. Finding people with the right expertise is incredibly difficult and this programme is a great step towards improving that in Cornwall.”
Twenty-two-year-old Elliott Paull studied Maths and Physics at Exeter University before deciding to pursue a Software Developer Higher Level Apprenticeship, and is starting his career at Redruth-based Bluefruit Software.
He said: “I’ve always been interested in Software Development and have even taught myself in my free time. I wanted to get into the industry and knew that Bluefruit was where I wanted to start my career and progress.”
Andy Stittle, Director for Teaching and Learning at the College said: “This national data demonstrates the consistently high quality of provision across all areas at the College, whether academic, technical or, as in this latest data release, work-based routes and Apprenticeships. It reflects the huge commitment of staff and learners and, crucially, the engagement and buy-in from the employers who are investing in their own businesses, in the careers of young people, and in the economy of Cornwall.”