The City of Bath College is to be represented at an international who’s who of the transport world next week in Birmingham.
Tens of thousands of visitors attending next week’s Traffex event will have the chance to find out about the College’s specialist Highways courses.
The 26th annual event at Birmingham’s NEC from April 16th to 18th will be attended by Learning Programme Co-ordinator Mary-Anne Couzins and Director of Development Rob Sibley.
The bi-annual exhibition is the largest transport event in the UK and attracts representatives in the areas of highways maintenance, traffic management, parking and road safety.
Mary-Anne said: “We want everyone to know we are in the Highways business. We offer very unique courses so we want people to know how they can gain a qualification without even going into a classroom.
“Attending the exhibition gives us the opportunity to meet past, present and potential learners. We’d particularly like to encourage more councils to use our courses as staff development. It’s often cheaper to re-train staff than to bring in new recruits.”
The Highways distance learning qualifications have been offered at the College for 28 years and just under 5,000 students have taken advantage of them.
It comes as the College has received a massive boost by being selected as the preferred supplier of courses for the Highways Agency.
From now until February 2015, about 150 employees at the country’s governing agency of roads will take individual Highways Open Technology short courses or work towards a Diploma in the specialist area of study.
It is the responsibility of the Highways Agency to operate, maintain and improve roads across England on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport.
Rob said he was pleased the partnership, which is worth about £58,000 to the College, had been finalised after nearly a year of negotiations.
He said: “We have always worked closely with councils, contractors and sub-contractors, but this is a real coup for us as the Highways Agency is the organisation which dictates national highways policies.
“We expect Highways Agency staff to start enrolling soon and we very much look forward to delivering our courses to them.”
The College offers a range of specialist programmes for those working or planning to work in the highways industry.
Modules include ground investigation, designing highways, resurfacing, highways law, and traffic management.
For more information on next week’s Traffex event visit www.traffex.com.
