Let’s make education and skills Dudley’s number one priority

I promised at the election to do all I could to make education and training Dudley’s number one priority. It’s the only way we’ll attract new industries and new jobs.

There’s going to be huge growth in low carbon industries, hi-tech manufacturing, healthcare technologies and digital media with well-paid green or hi-tech jobs – but the areas that benefit will be those that invest in education and skills now.

Look what happened with the computer and pharmaceutical industries. Britain led the world but most of the investment went to areas with skills they needed.

We’ve got great strengths in this area. Ingenuity, adaptability, hard work, the ability to grasp technological change. That’s how we built the industrial revolution. We’ve got some world-beating companies too.

But when it comes to output, the West Midlands hasn’t matched the national average since 1976 so we need a new approach to the skills that underpin our economy.

I want to see more vocational courses with stronger links between employers and schools and colleges providing more technical apprenticeships. We need schools involved with businesses so youngsters can see the opportunities in enterprise and industry. We need more training for people already at work and the unemployed too.

Schools need to link up with universities to drive up ambition and aspiration, but we’re the largest place in the country with no higher education campus. Turning that round would make a major contribution to our town centre economy too.

I persuaded the Labour government to promise money for new schools if Dudley Council could come up with a decent plan. Almost every other area in the Midlands produced plans that made the grade but the councillors running Dudley schools couldn’t get their act together. The Government's cutbacks mean there’s now even less chance of getting the funds needed to rebuild Dudley's schools.

We all know savings have to be made, but we shouldn’t accept there is no alternative to the right-wing coalition’s plans because there is a real choice about where cutbacks are made and how quickly the axe falls.

The quickest way to tackle the deficit is to boost the economy to get people into work and paying tax yet the Tories and Liberals are cutting the very areas that will drive growth and produce jobs.

That’s why I’m appealing to the Government and the council to protect spending on training and make education and skills our area’s our number one priority.