Schools initiative carries high hopes: Top companies have joined a scheme to help tomorrow's workforce. Diana Hinds reports

MORE THAN 70 leading British companies have joined a campaign linking business with schools to help children achieve more qualifications and build a better workforce.

The campaign, 'Aim High', organised by Business in the Community (BITC), will encourage businesses to become more closely involved with both primary and secondary schools and, with the help of teachers, will monitor the impact of this involvement on pupils' achievement.

Aim High hopes that more than 500 companies will join in the next 12 months, including many small and medium-sized businesses. Among those already signed up are Marks & Spencer, McDonalds, J Sainsbury plc, Unilever, Toyota and IBM.

Launching the campaign yesterday at Winton Primary School, near King's Cross, north London, Michael Heron, Post Office chairman and deputy chairman of BITC, said that business people often showed interest in education but did not always know how best to help.

Aim High sets out '10 pathways to achievement', a list of key areas where schools and companies can work together, including providing management expertise for governors, work experience for 15- to 19- year-olds, business placements for teachers, and 'mentoring', whereby people from the community help to support pupils.

Winton School was held up yesterday as a commendable but all- too rare example of a school where 'mentoring' has already helped to raise standards. After approaches to local businesses, colleges and other organisations, the school has established a pool of about 50 volunteers who go in twice a week, often during their lunch-hour, to work with individual children on tasks such as reading or maths.

John Cockrill, a volunteer who works for Travers Morgan, a nearby firm of engineering consultants, said he liked being able to take a break from his office. 'It's nice to be able to contribute something to the school and to see the children progressing. They're enthusiastic, and it gives me a real buzz. I have a two-year-old of my own, and helping in the school is teaching me a lot about children.'

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, welcomed the campaign and said that it could make a 'dramatic difference' to achievement in schools.

At present, only 30 per cent of Britain's school leavers go on to higher education, compared with 65 per cent in Germany and 44 per cent in the US. But by 2000, the Institute for Employment predicts that 40 per cent of jobs in Britain will require a degree standard.

Mr Heron added that businesses could make use of their marketing expertise to encourage pupils with their education. 'A company like McDonalds, for instance, has the ability to teach children that staying at school is cool,' he said.

(Photograph omitted)