Encouraging new opportunities and skills to take advantage of them here has been a key focus of mine throughout my time as an MP. I was therefore very proud to visit Yeovil College the week before last to see part of that encouragement coming to fruition with the official opening of their new Health, Care, Science & Technology building.
The investment in this building is a result both of the truly excellent performance of the staff and students at the College which has attracted more pupils and revenue, and funding from initiatives such as the national Institutes of Technology and T-level programmes and other more general funding that I have championed. I promised to prioritise a step change in skills development so it has been gratifying to see the PM and Chancellor put this at the heart of our Levelling Up agenda designed to spread opportunity, and it has been further confirmed today with Somerset being identified as a priority education area.
I was seriously impressed by just how good the new facility is, and how it is expanding the range and quality of the qualifications and skills people can obtain locally without having to move away. It should mean better jobs, better incomes and better businesses here in Somerset, and I can honestly say of all the various educational facilities I have seen over the years it is second to none.
This is exactly what we should all want for our area: a level of ambition that keeps driving forward and is hungry for more than just the old ways. We are incredibly lucky to have people throughout the team led by Yeovil College’s Principal Mark Bolton who are truly open to new ideas and passionate about seizing new opportunities to make positive change.
Part of my excitement was to hear about pioneering new courses they are designing as part of their new status as an Institute of Technology, one of which is in a field of practically applied computer science that is truly cutting edge.
Blockchain technology (in essence the ability to rely on contracts and protocols run directly in our computers and smart phones between ourselves and others we may not even trust, rather than via the assurance or permission of third parties and their systems) is on the cusp of transforming the ways we can interact socially and economically. It is forecast to grow exponentially as it gets adoption among consumers and businesses, and if it follows a path similar to the scale of internet adoption in the 1990s and internet based media and other services since the emergence of smartphones in the mid 2000s, blockchain-related industries could according to some forecasters be involved in value 10 times the size of the U.K. economy by 2030.
Yeovil College will be the first Further Education establishment to develop specific skills in this technology area, whether by enabling people to code the apps and programmes that can take advantage of it, or to get and impart insights into how industry and businesses can use it to innovate and improve their services and productivity. Moreover it will link Yeovil directly to cutting edge activity in this area throughout the entire world.
I can’t wait to see where this might lead, as Yeovil College sits in the middle of a cluster of local businesses for whom this should be seriously interesting, and with iAero and other local innovation facilities waiting to be filled with people and their ideas the world really can be our oyster.