10:41am Thursday 27th August 2009
By Sarah Hyde
NORTHERN Rail Ltd is making sure that education in York is on the right track.
The biggest rail company in England, which is based in Rougier Street, York, and operates 2,600 daily train services from Newcastle and Hull in the East to Carlisle and Liverpool in the west, carrying 85 million passengers a year, has been working with the University of York over the past 12 months across a range of projects.
These are aimed at developing students, improving their business ideas, and helping them become more innovative problem-solvers.
It forms the basis of a comprehensive submission for the Best Link with Higher Education title. For example:
• Northern Rail is a member of York Cares, which looks after the interest of underprivileged children. As such, it is helping to launch a ten week programme on transport for schools in deprived areas. Pupils will be visited by staff, such as conductors, to understand the process of buying tickets and boarding. They will also be taken on rail trips – for some, a first experience – and told of job opportunities. Throughout there will be an emphasis on transport safety.
• The 4,500-employee company is taking part in the York Award, a certificated programme of transferable skills training offered by the university in partnership with leading organisations. Northern Rail has provided employees to help with final interview assessments to see which students should be picked to learn how to cross over from academia to enterprise.
• Northern Rail challenged two teams of students from the university’s York Entrepreneurs society to come up with a marketing campaign designed to get students to use its trains. Students Jordan Abbott and Gordon Harrison shared the prize of £500 and were offered internships. One of the ideas – to offer students free entry to Oceana Night Club in Leeds if they buy a Northern Rail ticket to Leeds on a Monday night – will be implemented late next month.
• The rail company worked with the university’s psychology department to assess the application of new technology for advertising.
• A Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) is being set up between Northern Rail and the university so that the company can have direct access to the university’s skills and expertise by employing a graduate.
• Plans are being finalised to take on an intern in Northern Rail’s commercial team to conduct a database review over the summer holidays. Two other students will be offered internships
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