NCW dates announced

Next year's National Construction Week (NCW) will take place between 6 and 13 October, it has emerged today (Monday).

This year's NCW was a huge success with a 46% increase in the number of events days that took place compared to the previous year.

The key achievements were:

• Over 400 schools have already registered to take part in 'Creative Spaces', the nation-wide team based schools design competition for key stage 3 pupils (and Scottish equivalent). Schools will be working on their designs for the April 2004 deadline.
• There was a 60% increase in events aimed at women and ethnic minorities.
• 70,000 young people took part in 1,536 event days.
• The involvement of ministers such as Nigel Griffiths MP (Minister of construction) and Jacqui Smith MP (Minister of state DTI)

Paul Bower senior project manager for NCW said: "NCW 2004 will present us with new challenges.  We hope to encourage more employers to engage in events and understand the benefits of training young people and get more further education colleges and universities involved in the campaign.

"NCW is an ideal opportunity to showcase courses in construction whether it is an NVQ in bricklaying or a degree in construction management".

National Construction Week 2004 will feature events designed to provide secondary school students across the country with a fun and positive experience of construction.

Events will be partnerships between local construction employers (large medium and small), schools and colleges, industry federations and the area offices of CITB-ConstructionSkills