Engineering new career chances

Mar 26 2008 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

STUDENTS at Darlington College are being offered fast-track careers in the global metals industry thanks to a Stockton company.

Engineers from Siemens VAI MT were at the college’s Engineering Expo 2008 to help students capitalise on opportunities available through engineering apprenticeships.

They outlined the advantages offered by the apprenticeships’ combination of hands-on work-based training and college studies.

The Siemens VAI MT delegation included Rachel Harding, 20, who believes the career and world travel opportunities offered by the company are some of the best in the Siemens group.

At the age of 14, Rachel was the only girl in her class at school to take one of the then new vocational GCSEs in engineering.

Now she is in the final year of her modern apprenticeship and looking forward to starting a degree sponsored by Siemens VAI MT – followed by a masters and chartered engineer status.

In the four years since Rachel joined Siemens VAI MT, Stockton, she has worked on-site at a blast furnace in Vittoria, Brazil, and gained an NVQ Level 2 in Performing Engineering Operations and an ONC in Mechanical Engineering.

“I thought Brazil was brilliant – you get great opportunities here, it’s really good. There is an opportunity for me to go to China sometime this summer,” said Rachel.

Assistant engineer Joe Olley joined Siemens VAI MT as a Modern Apprentice in 2003 – since then he has worked in Brazil and India.

Joe had originally planned on joining the Army but his interview with Siemens VAI MT convinced him that a modern apprenticeship would guarantee him better long-term prospects.

In summer 2006 Joe flew out to Brazil for six weeks to work on the construction and commissioning of the CST No 3 blast furnace in Vittoria.

Last year he enjoyed a three-month secondment with the sales department – including a sales trip to the SAIL (Steel Authority of India) Ranchi plant in India.

Siemens VAI MT is currently recruiting Modern Apprentices for September.

Meanwhile Darlington College is celebrating after scooping a national award for the high standard of its efforts to improve workforce skills.

The college was one of only a handful of organisations across the country to be given the unionlearn Quality Award.

The accolade - presented by Innovation, Universities and Skills Secretary John Denham - was handed to the college in recognition of its trade union education programmes.

Mr Denham praised the college for demonstrating unions and union learners are considered in the design, development and delivery of courses and programmes. Gaining the Quality Award also means the college is included on the unionlearn website, which receives more than 1.5m hits per month.

Five thousand unionlearn members are trained in a wide range of skills in the North-east every year. Those efforts were boosted further last year by the opening of a new trade union education centre at the college’s Haughton Road campus.

Director of higher education at the centre Keith Wilson said: “The award is a real achievement and a fitting endorsement of the set of unionlearn programmes we have under the leadership of our tutor co-ordinator Ken Smith.”