Young people from Kirkintilloch High School had the opportunity to engage with local businesses at an event held in the school on 28 November 2017. S3 students heard from a range of local business leaders who view language skills as key to the growth and success of their company. The event demonstrated the relevance of language skills in a work context and aimed to encourage pupils to continue with their language studies into the senior phase of their secondary education, and beyond school.
A teacher attending the event said: “This was a really informative and useful event. It was good to see pupils really engage with the speakers, and the morning has had a big impact on the place of languages within the school.”
One of the young people added to this, and commented: “All the workshops were very informative and the event has helped me broaden my perspective of languages. It has helped me realise how much you can do with a language – that languages can help to get a job.”
The event was organised by Kirkintilloch High’s Modern Languages Department with support from SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages, working in partnership with local businesses. Companies attending included Audit Scotland, HarperCollins and Clansman Dynamics.
Fhiona Fisher, Director of SCILT said: “Events such as these are a really important way of providing young people with high quality careers advice delivered by the business people themselves and of demonstrating to them the value of language skills in our increasingly globalised world”.
Meaningful employer engagement and providing relevant careers advice are both key recommendations of Scotland’s Youth Employment Strategy, 'Developing the young workforce'. This business engagement event supported these aims by giving young people the opportunity to ask questions and find out more about the role of languages in the business world.
This collaboration between schools and businesses supported Scotland’s International Policy to equip young people with international communication and employability skills that they will need in our increasingly globalised society and economy.
For more information on SCILT’s work to promote the value of languages amongst young people in Scotland go to http://www.scilt.org.uk/Business/tabid/1297/Default.aspx.