December 29, 2022 1.30 pm This story is over 25 months old

Reflections 2022: Mark Locking – Producing a highly skilled local workforce

Changing the fortunes of the Lincolnshire workforce

Mark Locking is the Principal and CEO of the Lincoln College Group.

It’s been another fantastic year and I’d like to say a huge thank you to our fabulous staff and students. None of it would have been possible without the employers and communities we serve of course.

This was our first year without COVID restrictions and frankly, it’s been joyous to see our students enjoy the benefits of face-to face teaching and even more importantly – the chance to develop meaningful friendships.

COVID has left its mark and our support teams are working hard with a significantly increased caseload of young people needing help with mental health issues and lost learning; most importantly some of the social skills so important in life and work. We are hopeful these pressures will ease over time and we look forward with positivity, as the majority of our students are embracing a return to a more normal way of studying and life.

We’ve just held our staff awards and it was great to single out a few individuals and teams, but really, I’d just like to say a huge thank you to all of our staff for delivering such high quality and innovative teaching and learning throughout the year.

We have much to look forward to in the year ahead. You’ll have probably seen in the local news that we’ve just purchased the Old Bakery in Lincoln, which we’ll be running as the County’s first not-for-profit fine-dining restaurant.

This acquisition follows the relaunch of the Drill last year and the establishment of the Aura hair and beauty salon the year before that. The driver for this seemingly commercial expansion is not profit. Our motivation is to achieve our Purpose; to be an extraordinary employer-led organisation; producing a highly skilled and productive local workforce.

By designing our curriculum with employers and creating real-life industry experiences in our businesses, we’re actually creating the very best finishing schools for our students and apprentices. It’s not really about the qualifications – it’s about skills, confidence and leadership – productivity. This makes them increasingly ready for real life work.

We also cut-the-turf on our new £15m state of the art Air and Space Institute (ASI) this year and we’re looking forward to its completion.

As with our commercial ventures – this is about creating an environment to nurture productivity and this facility will have an Airbus jet inside it for our engineers to work on and our pilots will be taking to the skies for lessons in our ASI plane – truly extraordinary education!

Every year holds challenges and uncertainty. This year further education colleges were reclassified as public sector organisations. Our aim now is to navigate inevitable increased bureaucracy to maintain our commercial agility, which adds so much value for our students. We’re sure that by working with government we can maximise the opportunities that a closer relationship offers.

Finally, I’d like to thank the local community for their support this year. Our student numbers have grown significantly and it’s looking like this trend will continue.

Remember, whether you’re a school leaver or you’ve been in the world of work for decades, we have a course that could change your life and change your fortunes, so come and see us at one of our open days.

Happy New Year!

Reports brought to you by The Lincolnite editorial team.