A Black Country-based trade association’s innovative approach to solving the manufacturing sector’s biggest skills problem could be rolled out nationwide.

The West Midlands-based Confederation of British Metalforming (CBM) has devised a scheme with Walsall Business Partnership (WBP), which targets teachers through summer-time factory tours and off-site meetings - then encourages them to include their new knowledge in school timetables.

CBM president Barry Yeomans said the concept was trialled during 2010, with the EBP, and he is delighted by the way the just-completed 2011 scheme operated.

Mr Yeomans said: “We used feedback from last year’s trial to fine-tune the way the initiative worked, and it really couldn’t have been better received by the employers or the teachers.

“We‘re already seeing skill shortages as workers with decades of accumulated expertise retire, and those problems will intensify unless we persuade significant numbers of school-leavers that engineering can provide them with challenging, stimulating and rewarding careers.”

Previous schemes aimed at persuading youngsters to enter industry, have typically involved time-consuming school visits by company bosses, combined with expensive and glossy advertising campaigns.

Mr Yeomans said those nationally-driven initiatives didn’t have the desired impact, and believes that this programme is more rational and more cost-effective.