Pact 4 Youth leaders meeting

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Making business-education partnerships the new normal.

Brussels, 22nd of December- One year ago the European Commission together with CSR Europe, IBM, Nestlé, Solvay and several other companies launched the Pact 4 Youth, a partnership to make business-education collaboration the “new normal” across Europe. It’s a mutual commitment to support the creation of 10,000 quality business-education partnerships, with the shared target to establish together at least 100,000 new good quality apprenticeships, traineeships or entry-level jobs. One year on I was very pleased to join the high-level review of our efforts with the EU Commissioners for Employment and Education.

IT drives change and with that change, new jobs emerge with different skill requirements. These skills are often more and more technical. Think of cognitive computing and how it adds thinking to computers, thus helping us to make better and informed decisions. Or the growth of data where analytics helps us to filter data. Education at school has not adapted to the reality of the impacts of technology on job content. IBM believes that much closer involvement of business with schools is the solution. On the one hand we can augment core curriculum with input from people in business. On the other hand, examples from industries help develop students’ interest in STEM subjects – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

To improve the quality of education and student outcomes across Europe, IBM collaborates with Ministries of Education, Schools, Colleges, Universities and NGOs. This year we ran 2,700 sessions and reached 61,000 students and 2,500 teachers through 216 education partnerships in the EU. At a global level, IBM launched #P-TECH to enable children from disadvantaged backgrounds to gain high level qualifications and access to jobs at IBM.

In several countries teachers spend time at IBM to learn about industry, the jobs available and the skills required. We also provide a resource for STEM learning, the Teachers TryScience Website, where teachers can find classroom lessons. And we are planning a new program Teacher Advisor with Watson that uses cognitive technology to support teachers with classroom strategies. Our focus on Teacher Professional Development includes courses to help teachers in Spain and the UK deliver the new national curriculum on computer science at primary level.

Pact for Youth is also about enhancing Employability & Skills. Working with the Flemish Employment service in Belgium -VDAB – we developed a tool that uses analytics to match job seekers to available jobs, reducing the time individuals are unemployed. This is being replicated in other countries, starting in Austria.

At IBM our Apprenticeships offer a huge amount of skills and training. In early December, we took part in the first #EUVocationalSkill week, entering one of our UK apprentices, Lewis Churchill for the European Alliance for Apprenticeships award. The week featured over 800 activities across Europe, demonstrating how vocational skills are vital to employers and show-casing the wide range of opportunities available through training. Lewis won and was named Best Apprentice, while IBM was recognized for its commitment to the Alliance’s standards focused on the quality, supply and mobility of apprentices. Lewis’ personal development into a successful co-worker was recognized as an outstanding achievement in apprenticeships.

In December 2016 IBM Belgium signed a charter ‘Decent Work for All’ committing to join forces with The Shift and 50 Belgian companies to build bridges to integrate vulnerable people in the labour market. IBM already has extensive experience in this field as we provide IT and professional skills training for unemployed migrants in partnership with the Agencies for Inclusion & Integration in Brussels and Antwerp. In 2016, 12 IBM volunteers supported 240 people in 16 sessions.

Starting in 2017, under the umbrella @level2work, an initiative of VDAB, Actiris, Tracé and the Agencies for Inclusion & Integration, IBM Belgium will be hosting several one-day Orientation Days for recently arrived job seekers from a non EU-country with an ICT background. The objective is to introduce them to the latest ICT trends: internet of things, Watson, cognitive, etc.

By signing the charter and partnering with the companies involved, we will be able to pool our capabilities, reach more people who require our support, leverage each other’s’ initiatives and substantially increase our impact in society.

In the coming year we will continue playing our leaderships role in this space and invite and support other businesses to join us to make business-education partnerships the “new normal”. A lot has already been achieved across Europe but a lot more needs to be done. The final results of the European Pact for Youth will be presented at the first Business-Education Summit in November 2017.