Learning for business in east London

Citation

(2001), "Learning for business in east London", Education + Training, Vol. 43 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2001.00443cab.007

Learning for business in east London

Learning for business in east London

Keywords: Small firms, Learning, Competitiveness

An £870,000 project, partly funded by the European Union Adapt initiative, is helping small firms in east London to become more competitive. Learn4Business targets around 90 white-collar workers in the Docklands, Tower Hamlets and Newham, who already have basic office experience but need to adapt to rapid technological change. The project teaches hard and soft skills, mainly online, at no cost to the individuals or businesses. Facilitators at Newham Sixth-Form College, Tower Hamlets College and the University of East London have recruited the employees and will act as training consultants to their businesses. Customized training packages are being put together and delivered with the help of General Physics, which has provided the information-technology infrastructure and content, and Objective Computing.

External evaluation of the project is being carried out by the Institute of Employment Research, based at Warwick University. Learn4Business will feed into the University of East London's centre of excellence for knowledge management. It has links with Asia and the USA, where incubator offices and networks have been established. The lessons learned from the project will be presented in a manual to help other schemes to benefit from the Learn4Business philosophy and approach.

Further information is available from Yin Khvat. Tel: +44 20 7831 2999.