500 Students Visit UK Printing Careers Day

Almost 500 students, who travelled from as far afield as Cornwall, Norfolk and Lancashire, attended the Careers Day, organised by The Educational Charity of the UK's Stationers' Company.

Almost 500 students, who travelled from as far afield as Cornwall, Norfolk and Lancashire, attended the Careers Day, organised by The Educational Charity of the UK's Stationers' Company and sponsored by David S Smith.

They were drawn from the 20 schools supported by The Educational Charity as well as those who entered PrintIT and are part of the Paper Magic Scheme for paper recycling in schools.

"This year's event was bigger, better and more relevant to the Trades of the Guild than ever before," said David Allan, who chaired the working party running the day.

A lot of interest was shown in the exhibition of the finalists in the PrintIT competition.

Produced by students aged 15-16, as part of their GCSE Graphic Products course, and the entries attracted a very high standard .

The winners, chosen from those exhibited, will be announced and displayed at Ipex.

They will be used in the packaging and promotion of a new fruit range to be marketed by the Fair Trade Charity next year and the winning schools will be presented with GBP100,000 worth of IT and print related prizes.

The lectures on print, using the Print Dynamics software were well attended and students were interested to find out about the range of careers and trades encompassed within the collective word of graphics.

They were also interested about learning about the avenues open to them through further education and apprenticeships in the print and graphic industries.

The Careers Day was supported by Paper Trail, Polestar, Heidelberg, BPIF, HP and IPC Magazines, whose information and interactive displays showed the students the progression of print from the tree to finished publication.

Cicely Brown, chief executive officer of the British Priting Industries Federation commented: "It is clear that the combination of Print IT, Print Dynamics and the industry is a powerful advertisement and compelling opportunity for youngsters considering their careers.

More so than ever, as an exhibitor, you can can feel that these events really are getting positive messages about the industry through to children.

I have no doubt that our industry will be richer as a result of these initiatives in the short to medium and ultimately long term.".

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