OFMDFM — ‘Building Employment through Education’ Project.

Descriptions

The Northern Social Investment Fund (SIF) Zone Steering Group identified the ‘Building Employment through Education’ (BEE) project as 1 of its strategic priorities. The BEE project is an education based initiative which is aimed at breaking the intergenerational transfer of disadvantage from parents with poor literacy, language and numeracy skills to their children. This initiative is based on research which indicates that low aspirations are transferred to children from parents due to the quality of the home learning environment. This coupled with parents' own qualification levels are noted to be the most important background factors relating to a child's attainment. The proposed level of provision considered for this project is to carry out a 2 stage approach to re-engage disengaged adults in the education process and to build opportunities for subsequent employment through education in order to reduce deprivation, increase skills and enhance employability. The level of provision proposed in these 2 stages is as follows: Stage 1 — Communities and Schools Together. This stage is aimed at operating across the 10 Council areas within the Northern SIF Zone and work to connect 20 schools (10 Primary and 10 Post Primary — one in each of the Council areas — see table below) and communities to address a number of issues impacting local councils such as educational underachievement, poverty, parental engagement, parenting support and employability. Stage 2 — Coastal Call. This stage of the project will aim to establish four vibrant learning networks in Larne, Carrickfergus, Newtownabbey and Moyle to increase learning opportunities among the most disadvantaged and excluded communities in the Northern SIF Zone.