Pembrokeshire College visit Newfoundland, Canada
Between March and April 2024, senior managers and practitioners from Pembrokeshire College visited the College of the North Atlantic in Newfoundland, Canada as part of a Taith-funded mobility through the ColegauCymru consortium application. Arwyn Williams, senior manager and head of faculty for engineering computing and higher education at the college, tells us about the experience.
For probably three or four years now, we’ve been working with several Renewable Energy companies at Pembrokeshire College. Last year, our Principal Doctor Barry Walters went to Canada as part of a Welsh delegation. He met with several colleges, and he found that there were lots of synergies with what we were doing in Wales, but also that they were ahead in some aspects of their work – the training of learners in the maintenance of wind turbines, for example.
Following a series of initial online meetings in 2023, we hosted a delegation of Canadian senior managers in December 2023 and we began to strengthen our partnership. This led to our visit to Canada, funded by Taith through the ColegauCymru consortium application, during March and April 2024.
Our aim was to learn how the College of the North Atlantic was developing the areas of work that were relevant to our work in Wales: renewable energies, such as hydrogen and wind turbines. They are also delivering a power systems programme, which is something we are keen to explore with them.
We spent time exploring how the College of the North Atlantic was developing key areas of work and identifying how we complemented each other and how we could work together. We realised that there was a great synergy in terms of what we aim to achieve.
It was really useful to see their port infrastructure and how they were building and storing renewable energy structures such as wind turbines. During the visit, we also had a visit to the control room set up for their in-house power station. The discussion and sharing of information helped the college to identify the specialist software to be used in our own control room supported by Shell UK. This is a state of the art facility and enables training in control systems in offshore floating wind, hydrogen, solar PV and a range of hydrocarbon systems. The software we are using is the same that we saw for the first time in Canada. Our learners and staff have already benefitted a lot from this development.
Also, in Canada they have a different educational set up, which was quite interesting to learn about, and they feel that there are some aspects of the Welsh system that they would like to replicate over there, particularly around the mechanism for curriculum development in collaboration with the industry.
The main thing that we took away from the visit was the synergy between our colleges and how we’re on a similar journey. Because they are a bit ahead of us in some areas, we can learn from what they’ve already learned, and they are keen to learn from our experiences as well.
I think learning about their Women of Steel programme, which is about getting female students into engineering and construction was an additional benefit. We’re running a Swansea Bay City Deal Skills and Talent Program with the Regional Learning and Skills Partnership called SPARC Alliance, designed to actively involve females in traditionally underrepresented sectors, with a particular focus on energy, engineering and construction. It was a great opportunity to compare the two programmes and learn how best to encourage more women to consider careers in these sectors, help break stereotypes and provide hands-on learning opportunities for women.
Also, in Newfoundland they’re doing really well at working with different groups such as the indigenous communities, in terms of supporting and engaging these groups to access modern trades and skills. That gave us a lot of food for thought about how we could adapt that learning to the Welsh context and the engagement we want to have with different communities in Wales.
There’s a whole range of technologies that we are planning to use, and being able to discuss in detail with people who are already utilising these technologies is invaluable. It means that we can tap into that resource knowing that we’re not in competition with these colleagues who are on the other side of the Atlantic.
We are really excited about our future collaboration: we have signed an MOU, we are exchanging curriculum developments, including our experience with Destination Renewables, which is a programme aimed at giving opportunities to 16-18 year old students to link with future employers to prepare them for jobs in the fast growing green energy sector. And we are planning to host Canadian learners in Wales and send Welsh learners to Canada, so that they can learn from each other in both countries.
Our vision is that if we in Pembrokeshire are going to be a leading college in renewable energies for Wales or the UK, having a supportive partner on the other side of the Atlantic gives us the advantage of working together for mutual benefit, instead of having to reinvent the wheel.
