The Co-operative Academy secures £100k to reduce NEETs

The Co-operative Academy of Manchester has secured £100,000 for a wide-ranging project seeking to reduce the number of post-16 school leavers not in education, employment or training (NEET).

The Green Enterprise Project (GEP) received the boost from The Britannia Foundation to help students develop enterprise capability, financial literacy and business understanding. It also hopes to increase engagement and improve educational attainment measured via financial accreditations, such as adult literacy and numeracy (ALAN), Certificate of Employable Skills, COPE Enterprise, the Open College, Maths functional skills and GCSE maths.

“The GEP project engages with a wider audience, bringing financial literacy to life, encouraging the development of global citizens, ethical awareness, collective responsibility and community cohesion,” says Kathy Leaver, principal of The Co-operative Academy of Manchester.

“This project is about students becoming more numerate, financially literate and ultimately employable using the financial expertise of The Co-operative Financial Services which includes Britannia.”

Rod Bulmer, managing director of retail for The Co-operative Financial Services, says: “Since we made the decision to sponsor the Academy we had one aim, we wanted to make a clear difference, raise aspirations and the self-seem of students, the GEP offers the perfect vehicle to do just that within a financial context to achieve the students potential and improve their job prospects, it will certainly develop business acumen of all involved.”

Jason Rainbow