Employer Engagement Manual presented in Yerevan

February 17, 2010 - 15:32 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net -
The Employer Engagement Manual was presented in Yerevan in the frame of the “Skills@Work” project of the British Council in Armenia. The manual has been designed for VET college principals and is supposed to support and guide them in establishing cooperation with employers.

The "Skills@Work" is intended to develop vocational education in Armenia and 19 countries in South-Eastern Europe and is supported by the local education ministry.

According to Vahagn Hovhannisyan, head of business projects department at RA Chamber of Commerce, cooperation between business and education will play an important role in the country's development.

British Council

The British Council is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation based in the United Kingdom which specialises in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is a non-departmental public body, a public corporation incorporated by royal charter, and is registered as a charity in England.

Founded in 1934, it was granted a royal charter by King George VI in 1940. Its 'sponsoring department' within the United Kingdom Government is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, although it has day-to-day operational independence. Martin Davidson is its chief executive, appointed in April 2007.

Its most recent Chair was Lord Kinnock, the former leader of the UK Labour Party and a former European Commissioner. Kinnock stepped down after a meeting of the Board of Trustees on 7 July 2009 following the appointment of his wife to the House of Lords and as a Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office which is the sponsoring department of British Council. Their son Stephen Kinnock - who was previously British Council's main lobbyist in Brussels and St Petersburg - left in January 2009 to take up a job with The World Economic Forum after he was expelled from Russia.

The Deputy Chair of British Council - Labour housing activist Gerard Lemos who is also a director of British Council's "off record" company British Council International Trading Limited - has taken over as Acting Chairperson until a successor to Lord Kinnock is recruited.