Councillor James Jamieson’s monthly column: Exam season and plans for the future of our education system

We are, after all, in the height of the exam season with lots of our 16 to 18-year-olds taking their GCSEs, AS and A-levels. This is the culmination of their school education experience, and whether it paves the way for further education or employment, I hope their efforts get the reward they deserve.

For me, high-quality education is a priority and I believe every child has a right to this. We already have many good schools across Central Bedfordshire, and through our support services, we aim to help headteachers, teachers and governors ensure the standard of education their school provides is as high as possible.

Education isn’t only important for each individual child, it also holds the key to the future prosperity of our area. Our vision is for our children to be leaving school, college and university with excellent grades, providing the local economy with a deep talent pool of young people ready to bring their skills into the workplace. I feel that the promise of excellent schools will also enable us to attract more experienced professionals to come and work in Central Bedfordshire, as they will be determined to send their children to high performing schools and to benefit from other education services.

One such service will be a new Central Bedfordshire Music Service, which I’m pleased to announce will be launched in July. Whilst we have recently lost a significant amount of grant money, we have been consulting with schools, parents and young people about building a strong and flexible new service. As a commitment to this, we have also managed to keep funding the four Music Centres in Ampthill, Biggleswade, Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard in the short to medium term.

Of course, not every young person will flourish academically, but everyone should have the opportunity to be successful. Our approach is to be flexible and innovative to create such opportunities. This week, for example, we have been holding awards for young people who took part in the Eureka Youth’s Sales and Marketing programme, which Central Bedfordshire Council’s Youth Support Service commissioned. This was a course targeted at young people not in employment, education or training, which worked on building participants’ attitude and ambition before teaching them some sound business practice.

We’re also eagerly awaiting news on whether Central Bedfordshire College has been granted funding by the Baker Deering Trust to develop and run a University Technical College. This would provide teaching that would enable students to gain skills readily transferable to the sort of jobs provided by the local economy, focusing on product design, manufacturing and engineering. Now more than ever it is important that this sort of vocational training is provided as an alternative to academic study.

So there is lots going on in our services for children and young people, not all of which relates to learning and education. In the last few weeks we’ve also signed contracts which will cover the running of youth centres, volunteering opportunities and outdoor educational activities until March 2013.

As a parent I am, of course passionate about these developments. However, regardless of whether you have children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews of your own, I hope that you will share our ambitions to enhance the prospects of all young people, which are so closely linked to the prosperity and success of our entire communities.