British Government Representatives Visit VGCC’s Franklin County Campus
They weren’t royalty, but the three British visitors to Vance-Granville Community College’s Franklin County Campus Monday, Feb. 4, did represent Her Majesty’s Treasury.
Joanne Daniels, Sarah Mulley and Simon Ridley came to the United States to get a better idea of how community colleges work with industry to train more productive workers. They were accompanied on their tour by Jo LeGoode, vice-counsel at the British Consulate in Atlanta, and Dermott Finch from the British Embassy in Washington, D.C.
LeGoode said the visitors from Great Britain were brought to North Carolina because, “The state is usually on top in education and workforce issues.”
Ridley said the United Kingdom has “further education colleges,” which are closest to United States community colleges in their training goals, but most of the training of industrial workers is done through private providers. The UK wants to increase basic and intermediate skills in its workforce in order to improve productivity. “Specifically, the Treasury wants to learn better ways to respond to the needs of employers,” Ridley said.
In their afternoon visit to the Franklin County Campus in Louisburg, the British visitors met with Garland Elliott, VGCC Director of Economic Development Services, in the Biotechnology Training Center.
Elliott gave the visitors a tour of the Biotechnology Lab, which opened in 2001, and told them how the VGCC Bioworks program there trains people to run the manufacturing operations for the bioprocess, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. He explained that the facility and the class curriculum were developed in cooperation with industries such as Novozymes Inc. of Franklinton and with the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.
This cooperative effort in responding to industry needs was what the visitors were interested in, they said, and they questioned Elliott extensively on the mechanics of developing such training programs. Simon Ridley said the team would take back what they had learned to the United Kingdom and determine how Vance-Granville’s success could be implemented there to improve productivity.
During the day, the British visitors also spent time at the North Carolina Community College Systems offices in Raleigh and the Wake Technical Community College’s Business and Industry Center in Cary.
In the photo above, Garland Elliott of Vance-Granville Community College, left, explains the training conducted in the Biotechnology Lab at the college’s Franklin County Campus to Joanne Daniels, Simon Ridley and Sarah Mulley, left to right, during the visit of the representatives of Her Majesty’s Treasury on Monday, Feb. 4.
