Bournville College has been granted European Funding to invest into a scheme which will offer free courses to support the training of workers across the West Midlands including Stourbridge and Kidderminster.

 

£7 million of funding from the European Union European Social Fund has been secured by Bournville, on behalf of nine colleges including B-Met which has campuses at Stourbridge, Kidderminster and Brierley Hill, and will be used to fund training courses that are designed to meet the requirements of local industry.

The funding will allow businesses access to courses that would normally be chargeable, at no cost. The scheme will provide a number of sector specific courses for eligible employers along with more generic training programmes such as sales, customer service and people management.

Bournville, who led the application for the funding, aims to train 10,000 individuals alongside the other colleges in the region through the new scheme providing short one and two day courses as well as full qualifications.

Norman Cave, principal of Bournville College said: ‘This funding will support our continued commitment to develop skills within our community and the future of our local industry sectors. It is a fantastic opportunity for businesses in the area to develop their workforce to enable future growth and prosperity for our region.’ The recently launched scheme enables businesses with 250 or less full time equivalent employees, to train their employees who are aged 19 or over.

Employers can obtain further information and more detail on the eligibility criteria by visiting www.bournville.ac.uk/free-training/ or e-mailing: Training@bournville.info