European Social Fund in England

World class skills for London

Region: London, including all 5 London LSC areas (North, East, South, West and Central)

Funding: LSC Pan-London ESF Objective 3

Target group: SME employees

The World Class Skills for London' (WCL) project led by the University of Luton and funded by the LSC Pan-London Programme supports beneficiaries across London in the use of European and Asian languages. The project has so far aimed to support 73 SMEs looking to expand internationally and/or with multilingual and multicultural customers, for instance, those operating in the tourism and transport sectors.

This addresses the fact that London companies, like in the rest of England, have been lagging behind in the level of their employees' language skills with a negative impact on businesses' capability to compete at international level and to engage with their international customer base.

In addition to the University of Luton, the Department of Trade & Industry's UK Trade & Investment and the Specialist Schools Trust are working with five Language Specialist Schools operating in each of the 5 LSC London areas through an innovative partnership approach. The five schools deliver the University of Luton award winning Language and Culture for Business (LCB) programme specifically designed with the needs of small and medium companies in mind. Qualifications offered through the scheme include ASSET Languages, a voluntary scheme which forms part of the National Languages Strategy by providing recognition of achievement for learners of all ages against the DfES' Languages Ladder.

100 learners have been enrolled on WCL so far. Quotes from some of them who are attending training at Cheam High School highlight the success of the project so far:

"As the classes are smaller the tuition is more personal, teacher can adapt to suit everyone's needs. Excellent! Never knew one word of Spanish before the course started, now I know quite a bit." (Elaine Peake, Le Maitre Ltd)

"As a travel agent I am finding the course very informative and it will be very useful for my job, I have learnt a lot since I started in September as the course covers all the things that I need to know to do my job and more" (Evarne Journet, Business Travel Manager, Wellers Travel)

"Your teaching of the course has made it enjoyable and most informative. We have learnt much in a short amount of time" (Spanish beginner class at Cheam High School - April / December 2005 session)