Rural education initiative celebrates milestone

Routes to rural employment celebrates landmark downloads.

 

An initiative to encourage children and young people to consider careers in the countryside is celebrating a landmark milestone just four months after it was launched.

Routes to Rural Employment (R2RE), spearheaded by the Scottish Countryside Alliance (SCA), has had almost 1000 primary school teaching resources downloaded from its website this term.  Charlie Shentall of SCA is project managing the programme. He said:

“We have been overwhelmed by the popularity of our online teaching tools. We had originally hoped 300 primary school children would benefit from the resources but that figure could well be 100 times higher given the 1000 downloads.”

Teaching packs  include information on being a farmer, bee keeper, vet and shop keeper.  The initiative will also be working with primary schools to arrange visits to rural businesses.

As well as primary school children, R2RE aims to work with 200 young people at secondary school level and a further 100 about to enter the world of work. Over the course of the initial five-year plan, it is hoped thousands of young people will have benefitted from at least one aspect of the programme and that many will follow it throughout their school years.

Charlie Shentall added:

“There is a real need to develop an understanding of the opportunities available to young people in rural areas. Not only does this programme benefit young people by affording them education, mentoring and support to help them secure employment; it also supports the rural economy, which needs the next generation in order to survive and thrive.

“There is a myriad of career opportunities available – not just traditional roles such as farming. This programme aims to provide a route, from primary school through to leaving education, which helps young people develop the skills and experiences to secure sustainable employment in rural areas.”

As well as providing educational materials and references, which form part of the Curriculum for Excellence, tailored to developing knowledge of rural employment opportunities, R2RE will develop work experience and group mentoring; and identify opportunities for one-to-one mentoring.  The programme will also provide financial and administrative support to a number of those entering the workplace on an apprenticeship or low wage, so that their pay will equal a living wage.

For more information, log onto www.r2re.org