Growing, expanding, creating, moving, improving, progressing – Manchester is the city that never stands still. In the next 20 years demand for everything will expand across the city region – population, jobs and homes, and the need for more skilled workers.
That’s why LTE Group is investing £140 million in The Manchester College and UCEN Manchester, our further and higher education (FE and HE) organisations, getting our city and its citizens ready for the future with our pioneering estates strategy to support our Vision 2025, to be the Number 1 College for technical education.
The significant investment in the remodelling of the College and UCEN Manchester’s campus estate will benefit over one million Mancunians over the coming decades, allowing them to remain at the forefront of technical and vocational education.
The Manchester College has been at the heart of Manchester life since the start of Sunday school education in 1827. Always pioneering, the College spearheaded technical education in the 1950s, with the development of Openshaw Technical College to meet demand.
Our evolution continued over the ensuing decades with a series of campus developments, redevelopments and mergers to meet the ever-changing and evolving educational needs of our City – one of the fastest growing in Europe - and its communities.
Fast forward to now. The Greater Manchester population is above 1.2 million and, by 2035, predicted to grow by a further 300,000. With this growth comes challenges to meet the demand for a skilled workforce, with a supply of well-educated, and trained local residents.
Between now and 2025, 120,000 new jobs at qualification Levels 4 and 5 will be created, most of which will be in the city region. This, alongside changes to trams, bus networks and rail, mean that our students are using different methods of travel to their learning locations.
The number of people who can travel into central Manchester within 45 minutes will increase by several million people over the next decade. All of the above create new demand for education and skills, and we are meeting that demand with our investment in Industry Excellence across the city.
In order to remain at the forefront of technical and vocational education for the years ahead, LTE Group is supporting the college in it's Vision 2025 to be the Number 1 College for technical education by reforming its FE and HE campus footprint. This ambitious £140m masterplan will ensure the facilitities for students mirror the curriculum ambitions to meet educational need, upskill future students and match the demands of an ever evolving city.
The two-phase £140m strategy includes the creation of a brand new city centre campus (adjacent to Manchester Arena), alongside the remodelling of its existing campuses. Future FE and HE provision for both organisations will be consolidated from 11 locations, and eventually delivered out of five main campuses, to meet the economic and skills needs of the Greater Manchester area and future generations of students. Ultimately, these facilities will offer students the opportunity to learn in an environment that matches those they will work in when they start their career.
The estates strategy will release some of our old sites for alternative uses, which will secure capital receipts to offset the investment in the new facilities and capacity under construction. LTE Group has committed to ensure any surplus land or buildings being released as a result of our estates strategy are repurposed to create claude for the city in other was, contributing towards and being reflective of local needs.
It is estimated that over the life of the new and refurbished facilities, more than one million Mancunians will benefit from innovative learning environments that will prepare students for work, with a curriculum that is co-designed and co-delivered with employers.
This means that students will experience their learning environment at educational campuses and at employer organisations; ultimately enabling each to be work-ready when they complete their initial phase of education.
The driving force behind the campus redevelopment is to support the college and UCEN Manchester to be the Number 1 provider of technical education by providing facilities in which students will benefit from a programme of study that has be co-developed with industry partners and aligned to the current and future industry skills demands.
Our strategy focuses on strongly aligning a high quality technical education provision with the region’s key economic priority sectors and delivering the new Gold Standard Technical Level (T Level) qualifications, which the College will deliver from September 2021.
This combination of an outstanding campus environment and a co-created and co-delivered curriculum/training system has many benefits. Fundamentally, it will deliver an increase in the volume of highly skilled local people, driving their personal economic success and outcomes. In broader terms, it will provide the resources for better qualified and more motivated local residents with the right qualifications and skills, fit for the longer term economic demands of the city region.
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03333 222 111 enquiries@ltegroup.co.uk
