Industry experts of the future start college training from firms including Conoco Phillips, SABIC, Hunstman, Venator

Twelve apprentices from the Science Industry Apprenticeship Consortium North East (SIAC NE) are now training with Hartlepool College of Further Education, which was recently named number one in the Government’s National Achievement Rate table for further education apprenticeship provision in the North East, with further plans to double the number of apprentices in the coming academic year.

The current cohort started in September 2018 and train as Science Industry Maintenance Technicians apprentices on a four-year program.

Gary Riches, head of employer services at the college, said: “There are a number of employers under the Science Industry Apprenticeship Consortium in the North East which the college works with which include Conoco Phillips, SABIC, Hunstman, Venator and Lotte Chemical amongst others.

"We work with all of these employers through our Apprenticeship Training Agency (ATA) partner Cogent Skills.”

Other companies in the region set to be joining the SIAC include Fujifilm, CPI and Lucite.

Chair of the SIAC NE, Hayley Carter who is also Learning and Development Adviser at CPI, said: “Working with Hartlepool College of Further Education has been fantastic, and our relationship has gone from strength-to-strength.

“We’ve recently made the decision to continue to use the college for our 2019 cohort for the next academic year and that is largely due to the feedback we’ve had from our apprentices.

“In terms of working with the College we’ve continued to build our partnership to a point where together we can provide the most effective training possible for our apprentices by collaborating with the college to deliver bespoke high skill training to suit our business needs."

Gary added: “SIAC’s recruitment for apprentices is first class and the Consortium has been meticulous in its requirements from both the apprentices and the College.

“We work hard with our learners to ensure we provide SIAC with the right individuals with the skills they need and have been impressed with the progress the apprentices have made to date.

“The science industry is another area of engineering that we and our learners excel at and we’re proud to be able to further grow our partnership with SIAC.

“We aim to give a value added service to all of our employer partners and we have done this with SIAC in providing further additional training to existing members of staff to support their holistic business training needs."