GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

be looking at those higher education pathways and it is important that we

recognise that within all our industries there is no such thing as the lifetime job,

that people are not only going to be changing their jobs, not only their

employers, not only the nature of their employment and we feel it is vitally

important that we keep our young people within our respective industries

updated on opportunities to progress.

We specifically heard from Keith from Wolverhampton University and Paul from

Ruskin about trade union education. Somebody called it putting cogs in the

wheel. We had a similar conversation last night. Just churning young people

out to perform the functions of the particular industry or the particular job that

they are asked to do is insufficient, because we know that that is going to

change. Making them aware through trade union education is a starting point,

but that is the portal which can open the doorway to them to expand their

aspirations and all I would say is that it is really encouraging and reassuring

that we have other higher education institutions (obviously, we had

representatives from Somerville College here) to increase participation in

higher education. Within our organisation for our young staff we actually insist

that they map out some pathway relevant to their skills, relevant to their

interests. It may not necessarily be relevant to the job that they are doing,

because that job may change, that job may not be there in years to come.

All I would say on behalf of conference is we really do welcome these

presentations and I would encourage you to embrace all the opportunities

based on not only the people that are here but also the other institutions that

we are trying to work with. Thank you. (Applause)

SIS YVONNE PATTISON (NAPO): This is maybe a really obvious statement, but

given that we are trying to bring the younger generation into the trade union

movement and given that universities tend to have lots of young people there, I

think that this is a really good partnership. I was just thinking about what we

have agreed or what we are looking at about the equality seats and bringing

younger people in under the age of 30. I am guessing a lot of your students

are under the age of 30. It would be really useful actually to have somebody

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