The United Kingdom has long flirted with the introduction of vocational education in schools but each time various initiatives have faded away. For the UK matters academic have always trumped vocational education.This all began to change in 1983 with the introduction by the Government of national pilot technical and vocational education programmes (TVEI) 14-19, which were funded centrally by the Department of Employment . Herefordshire was the first of a limited number of pilot proposals to be accepted. This was followed in 1988 by a national programme of inservice training (TRIST) to spread the lessons from the TVEIPilot programmes. In 1989 the whole TVEI programme was rolled out across the UK as TVEI Extension.
As we entered the early 1990’s it was clear that Government ministers wanted local authorities to pick up the running of these programmes and that national funding would taper off and finish by the mid 1990’s .
The Department of Employment challenged schemes to come up with TVEI replication proposals in order to plan for life after funding. Hereford and Worcester County Council had run TVEI Extension in six consortia of which the geographical County of Herefordshire was one.
The Herefordshire group of secondary school headteachers and college principals were both an inspirational and a close knit group of professionals. They had enjoyed working together , supporting each other, sharing staff, sharing co-operative delivery with funding, and planning without the normal educational constraints.
The local Training and Enterprise Council (HAWTEC) had formed a management group with the Department, Hereford & Worcester County Council, the local TVEI management team and the Herefordshire TVEI Consortium. This Herefordshire enthusiasm to continue to manage their own affairs became infectious.
As a result the Department commissioned Coopers and Lybrand in 1992 to work with the secondary school headteachers and college principals to come up with a plan to take this highly successful co-operative life further. The result is now history as they say but the recommendations were clear that the HerefordshireTVEI Consortium was to be formed as a legal entity, separate from the local authority, with an Industrial and Provident Society organisational structure.
Each member institution would hold a £1 share which would allow one vote at all meetings. At the Annual General Meeting the members would elect a Board of Directors from amongst the members to run the affairs. This of course was revolutionary and unique across the United Kingdom. The Marches Consortium as the first co-operative within the Robert Owen Group was born.
Co-operative structures at local level have the power to create a world where the voluntary, statutory and business services and endeavours are seamless. In fact co-operative commonwealths where ‘we’ becomes more important than ‘I’ for as we all know no individual can exist and thrive in isolation.
With your help this new website will be the engine for change as we seek to support our communities with new ideas, share information, and build new projects . It’s yours, own it and help us in co-operation to show the world that the fire lit by our Pioneers in 1992 still burns brightly generating a new vision for a new world.
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