Brazilian visitors herald strengthening international links
Three education ministers from the Brazilian Government visited Reaseheath to see how we work with employers to train the industry force of tomorrow.
The visit was part of a project by the Association of Colleges (AoC) to encourage international links between colleges and in particular to look at successful links between education providers and industry. We were selected as a host college by the AoC thanks to our reputation for offering best practice in employer engagement and because of the high number of our students who gain employment after their course.
The delegates meet up with compatriot Ricardo Farias from Tetrapak Brazil
The Brazilian government is building a new education policy and the delegates were particularly interested in seeing how we design vocational education and training programmes at both further education (FE) and higher education (HE) level to meet the skills needs of employers.
Delegates Pedro Carvalho Leitao (Director of the Supervision Department), Luana Medeiros (Director of the Regulation Department) and Israel Gottscalk (Regulatory Policy Department) toured our food centre and food engineering and horticulture departments with Assistant Dean of HE Mark Harris and AoC International Manager Ayesha Williams.
During their tour of our food processing halls, our visitors enjoyed a chance encounter with fellow compatriot Ricardo Farias, a commissioning engineer for Tetrapak Brazil, who was coincidentally studying with us on a bespoke international training programme for Tetrapak.
After their visit, Luana said: “Reaseheath is a very good example of successful interaction between a college and the industries which are going to be employing its students. The facilities here are state of the art and equal or better than those you see in industry.”
- Our links with Brazil will be strengthened later this month with the arrival of around six Brazilian students who will be studying for ten weeks on existing food or countryside courses. Their visit is part of the AoC’s ‘Skills without Borders’ pilot programme which encourages vocational students at FE and HE level from Brazil to study and experience college life in Britain.
Header image: Our Brazilian delegates, joined by Mark Harris and Ayesha Williams, enjoy a presentation in the food production hall from Nick Blakemore
