Dr Emma Bolger

In December I attended the Scotland Policy Conferences Keynote Seminar: 'Developing the Young Workforce' - next steps for skills development and apprenticeships in Scotland . The briefing document is now available for purchase and has been distributed to delegates, contacts in government, the Scottish Parliament and other stakeholders. I contributed a short article to the briefing document, which is published below. For reference, a full list of the conference contributors can be downloaded here . There was much discussion at the Keynote Seminar of the need for diversity and consideration of equalities within apprenticeship provision. Reference was made by the Cabinet Secretary and Damien Yeates to the recently launched Skills Development Scotland Equality Action Plan for Modern Apprenticeships. Equalities should be seen to lead the development of apprenticeship provision in Scotland. My specialist area is gender bias in Modern Apprenticeships and for me, it was interesti...

Yesterday I a ttended the official launch and first networking event of The Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences (SGSSS) Collaborative PhD Programme in Glasgow. As a recipient of one of the ESRC co-funded studentships my research into Gender and Modern Apprenticeships will contribute to this knowledge exchange programme between the academic community, policy makers and practitioners, that seeks to understand skills issues from a Scottish perspective. More details on the event and the attendees can be found here . Here I am with my supervisor,  Prof. Mike Danson, demonstrating how much fun doing a PhD can be!