PrintIT! Gathers Pace With Government Praise

The UK government has welcomed Print It!, a vocational education initiative to encourage young people to embark on careers in the printing industry.

The UK government has welcomed Print It!, a vocational education initiative to encourage young people to embark on careers in the printing industry.

Print It! is targeted at Year 10 students of design and technology and is a collaboration between the printing industry (led by Picon, the business support organisation for suppliers to the industry), the Specialist Schools Trust and leading charity The Fairtrade Foundation.

Between October and December Year 10 students studying GCSE Graphic Products will have the opportunity to plan a print-based campaign on behalf of Fairtrade and, in the process, gain an understanding of the range of careers available in the industry said the organisation.

"We want to spark students' interest in the industry before they make career decisions," said Martyn Elmy, chairman of Picon.

Print It! carries prizes worth over GBP100,000 for successful schools and students, including digital printing and IT equipment and the winning entry will be used by Fairtrade as part of a live campaign in 2006.

Ivan Lewis, Minister for Skills and Vocational Education, welcomed Print It! as an excellent example of an industry taking its message in to schools and colleges.

"I congratulate organisations in the print industry who are working together to communicate the wealth of career opportunities for young people.

A competition such as this Print It! initiative for 15-year-olds, which aims to attract them in to good careers and raise the profile of the printing industry is to be commended.

Print It! will help raise skills and competitiveness in the fifth largest manufacturing sector in the UK." Support for participating teachers and students will be provided by a comprehensive teaching pack backed by an online resource.

SST lead practitioner Joanne Hayes, assistant head of faculty at Ashfield School, Kirby-in-Ashfield, Nottingham, is working with Print It! to develop the competition format and the teaching material.

"Until now there has been a chronic lack of up-to-date support material for GCSE Graphic Products, and as a result we haven't been able to do the subject justice.

For teachers, one of the most important achievements of Print It! will be to remedy this," said Hayes.

The teaching pack will contain examples of printed materials and extensive subject support matter, and will be curriculum-mapped to enable teachers to reference the course content directly to GCSE Graphic Products.

Continued Hayes: "We are designing the course content and support materials to make the subject informative and enjoyable for students, but also to make it easy to teach for busy teachers who are looking for a good quality course without having to spend valuable time doing background research." Print It! includes a scheme that will 'twin' schools and colleges with local printers who can demonstrate the best features of today's printing industry.

Twinning will be managed by the British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF) and the British Association for Print and Communication (BAPC).

Other contributors from the printing industry include Wyndeham Press Group, who will produce Print It! promotional and teaching materials, and paper supplier the Robert Horne Group.

"This is the most concerted industry-wide effort ever to raise the profile of the printing industry and encourage young people to make a career in printing.

Our industry is high-tech, IT-intensive, exciting, part of the UK's fifth largest sector and offers an enormous variety of careers - but students don't know this.

Instead, they labour under misconceptions that we must tackle if we are to meet the twin challenges of a declining intake of young people and an aging workforce with an average age in the mid to late 40s," said Martyn Elmy.

"Print It! will show students how printing pervades their daily lives, demonstrate the uniqueness of print as a medium and communicate the industry's role as an essential enabling technology for other industries such as publishing, advertising, marketing, direct mail, packaging, and so on," he added.

Sir Cyril Taylor, chairman of the Specialist Schools Trust, said: "The Specialist Schools Trust has been involved in Print It! from the early stages and we will continue to play a vital role.

Print It! is an excellent example of how we can work with industry to foster links between innovative, high-performing secondary schools and the business community." Harriet Lamb, director of The Fairtrade Foundation, described Print It! as an innovative way of promoting its goals.

"The ideas, printed material, and publicity that Print It! will generate are very welcome.

By encouraging students to create their own Fairtrade campaigns, the Print It! competition gives us a priceless opportunity to get them thinking about what we're trying to achieve.

Students and young people are crucial to our future success, because the buying habits they adopt now will stay with them for years," she commented.

Heads of graphics departments at schools who are interested in taking part in Print It! can register online via the Print It! website to ensure that they receive full details of the initiative.

Teaching packs will be distributed in June and July.

Entries must be submitted by the end of the Christmas term, and judging will take place in January 2006.

Prize winners will be invited to attend an awards ceremony in April at the Ipex 2006 exhibition at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham (UK).

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